How to delete an unknown object?

Question

I want to create a new stored procedure but I got this error:

00955. 00000 -  "name is already used by an existing object"

The problem is I don't remember to have created an object with this name and, now, I would like to remove it (don't worry, it's not on my production database).

How can I find the type of this object in order to drop it correctly?

Answer 1

The DBA_OBJECTS view describes all the objects in the database. In it, you can find, by instance, the name of an object, its owner or its type.

Example:

SELECT owner, object_name, object_type FROM dba_objects WHERE object_name = 'MY_OBJECT'; -- Be careful, the name is case sensitive.

OWNER               OBJECT_NAME         OBJECT_TYPE 
------------------- ------------------- -------------------
MY_USER             MY_OBJECT           PROCEDURE

Now, you can easily drop it:

DROP PROCEDURE MY_OBJECT;