Search All Fields In All Tables For A Specific Value (Oracle)

Question

Is it possible to search every field of every table for a particular value in Oracle?

There are hundreds of tables with thousands of rows in some tables so I know th

Answer 1

I know this is an old topic. But I see a comment to the question asking if it could be done in SQL rather than using PL/SQL. So thought to post a solution.

The below demonstration is to Search for a VALUE in all COLUMNS of all TABLES in an entire SCHEMA:

• Search a CHARACTER type

Let's look for the value KING in SCOTT schema.

SQL> variable val varchar2(10)
SQL> exec :val := 'KING'

PL/SQL procedure successfully completed.

SQL> SELECT DISTINCT SUBSTR (:val, 1, 11) "Searchword",
  2    SUBSTR (table_name, 1, 14) "Table",
  3    SUBSTR (column_name, 1, 14) "Column"
  4  FROM cols,
  5    TABLE (xmlsequence (dbms_xmlgen.getxmltype ('select '
  6    || column_name
  7    || ' from '
  8    || table_name
  9    || ' where upper('
 10    || column_name
 11    || ') like upper(''%'
 12    || :val
 13    || '%'')' ).extract ('ROWSET/ROW/*') ) ) t
 14  ORDER BY "Table"
 15  /

Searchword  Table          Column
----------- -------------- --------------
KING        EMP            ENAME

SQL>

• Search a NUMERIC type

Let's look for the value 20 in SCOTT schema.

SQL> variable val NUMBER
SQL> exec :val := 20

PL/SQL procedure successfully completed.

SQL> SELECT DISTINCT SUBSTR (:val, 1, 11) "Searchword",
  2    SUBSTR (table_name, 1, 14) "Table",
  3    SUBSTR (column_name, 1, 14) "Column"
  4  FROM cols,
  5    TABLE (xmlsequence (dbms_xmlgen.getxmltype ('select '
  6    || column_name
  7    || ' from '
  8    || table_name
  9    || ' where upper('
 10    || column_name
 11    || ') like upper(''%'
 12    || :val
 13    || '%'')' ).extract ('ROWSET/ROW/*') ) ) t
 14  ORDER BY "Table"
 15  /

Searchword  Table          Column
----------- -------------- --------------
20          DEPT           DEPTNO
20          EMP            DEPTNO
20          EMP            HIREDATE
20          SALGRADE       HISAL
20          SALGRADE       LOSAL

SQL>