Dumbing a database to an ASCII file

[Happosai]

Hi!

I have an Oracle database which I have to dumb to an ASCII file of a defined format. For that I need to read the whole database, including table names, column names and descriptions, format the data and write the file.

So, how do I :
- Find out all the table names
- Find out column names in a certain table

I'm programming this with Delphi and I think I'll be able to do rest of the data processing, I just need to extract all the data. Is it possible to do all this using a database user or do I have to log on as system user?

I got the table names and column names queries working in SQL*Plus, but now I need to do this with a database user and from an external program.

Thanks for the help!

[hrishy]

to find out all the tables in the databse you will have to have select priveleiges on the following views

dba_tables for all tables
dba_tab_columns for all columns


hth
hrishy

[Happosai]

Hmm, I tried to query those tables, but Oracle responded with a null string. Apparently I don't have the select privileges. How do I get them?

[lesstjm]

Sys has to grant your user select on those tables. Make sure they are granted directly to a user and not a role because when you are using procedures or functions the role privledges won't work.