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DBMS_METADATA

With DBMS_METADATA you can retrieve complete database object definitions (metadata) from the dictionary by specifying:

• The type of object, for example, tables, indexes, or procedures
• Optional selection criteria, such as owner or name
• Parse items (attributes of the returned objects that are to be parsed and returned separately).
• Optional transformations on the output. By default the output is represented in XML, but callers can specify transformations (into SQL DDL, for example), which are implemented by XSLT (Extensible Stylesheet Language Transformation) stylesheets stored in the database or externally.

DBMS_METADATA provides the following retrieval interfaces:

• For programmatic use: OPEN, SET_FILTER, SET_COUNT, GET_QUERY, SET_PARSE_ITEM, ADD_TRANSFORM, SET_TRANSFORM_PARAM, FETCH_xxx and CLOSE retrieve multiple objects.
• For use in SQL queries and for browsing: GET_XML and GET_DDL return metadata for a single named object. The GET_DEPENDENT_XML, GET_DEPENDENT_DDL, GET_GRANTED_XML, and GET_GRANTED_DDL interfaces return metadata for one or more dependent or granted objects.

This chapter discusses the following topics:

• Summary of DBMS_METADATA Subprograms