What is Public Synonym?

The web gives me a definition of Synonym as "A word that means the same as another word." Well Oracle also defines its Synonyms in the same way. Then what is a Public Synonym? It is nothing more than a Synonym accessible to all users of a Oracle database.

How to create a Public Synonym?
The syntax for creating a public synonym is

CREATE [ OR REPLACE ] PUBLIC SYNONYM synonym_name FOR object;

Example:

CREATE PUBLIC SYNONYM clerk FOR employee;

In our context employee is a table (or can be a view). As Clerk is also an employee, it makes understanding more easy.

You can query from clerk as you would do from employee table/view. Now you must have got the idea of why a synonym is used. 

Note: The usage of a public synonym from private synonym will be where you need to expose your not-so critical data to all database users. If your data is considered private, you should not be creating public synonyms for this purpose.

How to destroy a Public Synonym?

To destroy or drop a public synonym follow the syntax:

DROP PUBLIC SYNONYM synonym_name;

Example:

DROP PUBLIC SYNONYM clerk;

Click here to learn What is (Private) Synonym?