E Installing Rules Manager and Expression Filter

Rules Manager and Expression Filter provide a SQL schema and PL/SQL and Java packages that store, retrieve, update, and query collections of expressions (rule conditions) in an Oracle Database.

Rules Manager and Expression Filter are installed automatically with Oracle Database 10g Standard Edition and Oracle Database 10g Enterprise Edition and higher. Each is supplied as a set of PL/SQL packages, a Java package, a set of dictionary tables, and catalog views. All these objects are created in a dedicated schema named EXFSYS.

The script to install Rules Manager is named catrul.sql and is found in the $ORACLE_HOME/rdbms/admin/directory. The script to install the Expression Filter is named catexf.sql and is found in the $ORACLE_HOME/rdbms/admin/directory. These scripts should be executed from a SQL*Plus session while connected as SYSDBA. Rules Manager can be uninstalled using catnorul.sql script in the same directory. Expression Filter can be uninstalled using the catnoexf.sql script in the same directory. Uninstalling Expression Filter implicitly uninstalls Rules Manager.

The Rules Manager and Expression Filter features are the same in the Standard and Enterprise Editions. Support for indexing expressions is available only in the Enterprise Edition because it requires bitmap index support.

During installation of Oracle Database, a demonstration script is installed for both the Rules Manager and Expression Filter features. The scripts ruldemo.sql (Rules Manager demo) and exfdemo.sql (Expression Filter demo) are located in the $ORACLE_HOME/rdbms/demo/ directory.