Checking Oracle Error

How to Look up Oracle Error Code?

ORACLE Database is very notorious at throwing error messages for everything. Error code and messages are very helpful in debugging your code but at the same time, Oracle sometime throws more error codes then necessary. This can confuse the hell out of you and still does that to an experienced DBA. It takes a while to get used to with it.

Oracle displays error code with Cause and Action.  You should pay special attention while reading the error message, the message will clearly tell you what is wrong with your code or syntax and sometime the line number where the error exist. It makes easy to fix the code when you know where the problem exist.

Let's Error message like "table or view don't exist" can be confusing when the table or view you know it exist.  I know you are used to looking up error code online, but today I am going to show you how you can look up the code using oracle tool. This will save your time and make you more professional at what you do. Frequently searching online may make you  unprofessional when there is a just a command to look up. When sends a OERR utility package with Linux based installations.

OERR Utility: 
This utility is available only on Oracle that are installed on Linux/Unix. Windows does not have this but there are workaround to install this utility and I recommend installing on Windows as well.

baniya_dev /home/oracle> oerr ORA 00061

00061, 00000, "another instance has a different DML_LOCKS setting"
// *Cause: The shared instance being started is using DML locks, and the
//         running instances are not, or vice-versa.
// *Action: Ensure that all instances' INIT.ORA files specify
//          the DML_LOCKS parameter as 0 or all as non-zero.

Note:  As an Oracle user, you should have access this utility on Linux box. You don't have to have your DB running to get access to oerr utility.

PLSQL:
show error;