Oracle PL/SQL Programming

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By Steven Feuerstein

Publisher: O'Reilly Media

Released: September 1993

Pages: 916

Oracle is the most popular database management system in use today, and PL/SQL plays a pivotal role in current and projected Oracle products and applications. PL/SQL is a relatively new programming language providing procedural extensions to the SQL relational database language and to an ever-growing number of Oracle development tools, including SQL*Plus, Oracle Forms, Oracle Graphics, Oracle Reports, and Oracle Developer 2000 (formerly the Cooperative Development Environment (CDE)). It offers a myriad of data types, and such features as cursors, loops, conditional and sequential control statements, exception handlers, records, tables, and constructs for developing modular code (functions, procedures, and packages). Originally a rather limited tool, PL/SQL is now a mature and effective language for developers.

As more and more Oracle customers move from the mainframe to client- server configurations, PL/SQL is becoming ever more crucial. It provides the foundation for the code used to distribute processing and transactions across the network.

PL/SQL allows the developer to:

Design powerful and easy-to-use GUI interfaces in products like Oracle Forms and Oracle Graphics
Build complex reports and long-running batch processes
Implement critical business rules in database triggers and stored procedures

Although PL/SQL is very important to Oracle customers, it has not received the attention -- by Oracle Corporation and outside vendors and authors -- that it deserves. The only book previously available on PL/SQL is the overly concise Oracle reference manual. Training courses tend to focus on the flashy side of the new GUI tools and ignore the more complicated PL/SQL programming that is so vital to production applications.

Oracle PL/SQL Programming fills a huge gap in the Oracle market. The book provides developers with a single, comprehensive guide to building applications with PL/SQL -- and building them the right way. It's packed with strategies, code architectures, tips, techniques, and fully realized code. The book comes with a disk containing many examples of PL/SQL programs that readers can use immediately or as starting points for further development.

Oracle PL/SQL Programming is divided into six parts:

Part I introduces PL/SQL, its many versions, the environments in which it operates, PL/SQL language fundamentals, and effective coding style. Part II describes basic PL/SQL statements for variables, cursors, conditional and sequential control, loops, exception handling, records, and tables. Part III describes all of the built-in (predefined) PL/SQL functions and procedures -- string, date, number, and miscellaneous as well as the built-in packages that come with PL/SQL. Part IV describes how to modularize your PL/SQL programs using blocks, procedures, functions, and packages.

Part V describes how to debug PL/SQL programs and manage code in the database. It also contains a summary of tips for using PL/SQL most effectively.

Part VI contains appendices summarizing the contents of the disk and the calling of stored procedures from Version 1.1.

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Our look is the result of reader comments, our own experimentation, and feedback from distribution channels. Distinctive covers complement our distinctive approach to technical topics, breathing personality and life into potentially dry subjects. Ants are featured on the cover of Oracle PL/SQL Programming. At least 8,000 different species of ants can be found everywhere on Earth, except the North and South Poles. Ants preserved in amber suggest that these insects existed 50 million years before humans.

Humans have long been fascinated by ants because these tiny insects are accomplished builders, nurses, miners, and even farmers. Fables such as "The Ant and the Grasshopper" extol the virtues of hardworking, forward-looking ants. (Hail ants!) It is true that individual ants are able to perform amazing feats: an ant can carry up to 50 times its body weight, can travel the human equivalent of 40 miles a day, and can climb vertical heights the equivalent of Mount Everest. However, the greatest accomplishments of ants are those performed together for the good of their community.

Queen ants establish new communities, or nests, after their mating flight. On this flight the queen mates with several males. After mating, the males fall to Earth and die. In some species of red ant, the queen snaps the male in half after mating with him. The queen then finds an uninhabited nest, settles into it, and pulls her wings off. She will never fly again, and after removing her wings she is able to absorb the wing muscles as nutrients for her eggs. She will continue to lay eggs, thousands of them, for years.

During the three-stage development process, which takes about two months, the eggs, larvae, and pupae are cared for by the nurse ants, who feed, clean, and carefully move the young to warmer or cooler places in the nest, depending on the temperature. These nurse ants are, in turn, cared for by other worker ants, who feed the nurses with regurgitated food. The workers and the nurses will fight together to defend the young against enemies if the nest is invaded, either by another group of ants or by a larger animal. UNIX and its attendant programs can be unruly beasts. Nutshell Handbooks help you tame them.

...

Edie Freedman designed this cover and the entire UNIX bestiary that appears on the Nutshell Handbooks. The beasts themselves are adapted from 19th-century engravings from the Dover Pictorial Archive. The cover layout was produced with Quark XPress 3.3 using the ITC Garamond font.

The inside layout was designed by Edie Freedman and Jennifer Niederst and implemented in FrameMaker 4.0 by Mike Sierra. The text and heading fonts are ITC Garamond Light and Garamond Book. The illustrations that appear in the book were created in Macromedia Freehand 5.0 by Chris Reilley. This colophon was written by Clairemarie Fisher O'Leary.

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