Expert PL/SQL Practices is a book of collected wisdom on PL/SQL programming from some of the best and the brightest in the field. Each chapter is a deep-dive into a specific problem, technology, or feature set that you’ll face as a PL/SQL programmer. Each author has chosen their topic out of the strong belief that what they share can make a positive difference in the quality and scalability of code that you write. The path to mastery begins with syntax and the mechanics of writing statements to make things happen. If you’ve reached that point with PL/SQL, then let the authors of Expert PL/SQL Practices show you how to combine syntax and mechanics with features and techniques to really make the language sing. You’ll learn to do more with less effort, to write code that scales and performs well, and to eliminate and avoid defects. These authors are passionate about PL/SQL and the power it places at your disposal. They want you to succeed, to know all that PL/SQL can offer. Let Expert PL/SQL Practices open your eyes to the full power of Oracle’s world-class language for the database engine. Goes beyond the manual to cover good techniques and best practices Delivers knowledge usually gained only by hard experience Covers the functionality that distinguishes PL/SQL as a powerful and scalable programming language for deploying logic inside the database engine

A complete reference to all of the built-ins, including the new packages available with Oracle8, this book provides extensive examples and comes with a disk containing an online tool developed by RevealNet, Inc., that provides point-and-click access to the many files of source code and online documentation developed by the authors.

Expert PL/SQL Practices is a book of collected wisdom on PL/SQL programming from some of the best and the brightest in the field. Each chapter is a deep-dive into a specific problem, technology, or feature set that you’ll face as a PL/SQL programmer. Each author has chosen their topic out of the strong belief that what they share can make a positive difference in the quality and scalability of code that you write. The path to mastery begins with syntax and the mechanics of writing statements to make things happen. If you’ve reached that point with PL/SQL, then let the authors of Expert PL/SQL Practices show you how to combine syntax and mechanics with features and techniques to really make the language sing. You’ll learn to do more with less effort, to write code that scales and performs well, and to eliminate and avoid defects. These authors are passionate about PL/SQL and the power it places at your disposal. They want you to succeed, to know all that PL/SQL can offer. Let Expert PL/SQL Practices open your eyes to the full power of Oracle’s world-class language for the database engine. Goes beyond the manual to cover good techniques and best practices Delivers knowledge usually gained only by hard experience Covers the functionality that distinguishes PL/SQL as a powerful and scalable programming language for deploying logic inside the database engine

This pocket reference provides quick-reference information that will help you use Oracle Corporation's extensive set of built-in functions and packages, including those new to Oracle8. Oracle's PL/SQL language is a programming language providing procedural extensions to the SQL relational database language and to an ever-growing number of Oracle development tools. Among the most useful constructs in the PL/SQL language are the built-in functions and packages. Built-in functions are constructs that operate on certain types of data (e.g., numeric, character) to return a result. By using functions, you can minimize the coding you need to do in your programs. Functions are described in detail in Steven Feuerstein's Oracle PL/SQL Programming; this comprehensive guide to building applications with PL/SQL has become the bible for PL/SQL developers who have raved about its completeness, readability, and practicality. Built-in functions fall into several major categories: Character functions: Operate on character data. Examples include CONCAT (concatenates two strings into one), LENGTH (returns the length of a string), and REPLACE (replaces a character sequence in a string with a different set of characters). Date functions: Operate on dates and supplement the DATE datatype. Examples include SYSDATE (returns the current date and time in the Oracle Server) and LAST_DAY (returns the last day in the month of the specified date). Numeric functions: Operate on numeric data. Examples include CEIL (returns the smallest integer greater than or equal to the specified number) and POWER (returns a number raised to a particular power). LOB functions: Operate on large object data. Examples include EMPTY_BLOB (returns an empty locator of the binary large object type) and EMPTY_CLOB (returns an empty locator of the character large object type). Conversion functions: Perform explicit conversions of different types of data. Examples include TO_CHAR (converts a number or date to a string) and TO_NUMBER (converts a string to a number). Miscellaneous functions. Examples include GREATEST (returns the greatest of the specified list of values) and UID (returns the user ID of the current Oracle session). Built-in packages (collections of PL/SQL objects, such as functions, procedures, and data structures) greatly expand the scope of the PL/SQL language. These packages are described in detail in Feuerstein's and Beresniewicz's book, Oracle Built-in Packages. Built-in packages are built by Oracle Corporation and stored directly in the Oracle database. The functionality of the built-ins is available from any programming environment that can call PL/SQL stored procedures, including Visual Basic, Oracle Developer/2000, Oracle Application Server (for Web-based development), and, of course, the Oracle database itself. Built-in packages extend the capabilities and power of PL/SQL in many significant ways. For example: DBMS_SQL executes dynamically constructed SQL statements and PL/SQL blocks of code. DBMS_PIPE communicates between different Oracle sessions through a pipe in the RDBMS shared memory. DBMS_JOB submits and manages regularly scheduled jobs for execution inside the database. DBMS_LOB accesses and manipulates Oracle8's large objects (LOBs) from within PL/SQL programs. The book shows how to call all of the commonly used built-in functions and packages. For packages, it also shows the RESTRICT REFERENCES pragmas (needed if you call packages from a SQL statement), as well as the exceptions, constants, and data structures defined in the packages.

OracleのPL/SQL言語の中でも、特に強力な機能を提供するパッケージは、プログラミングの効率と質を向上させるうえで必要不可欠です。このリファレンスは、主要な組み込みパッケージの概要をカバーするとともに、日々のプログラミング作業でよく使用するパッケージ、組み込み関数およびプログラム例をコンパクトに見やすくまとめています。

Ce livre de poche fournit les informations essentielles sur l'ensemble des paquetages incorporés et des fonctions prédéfinies par Oracle Corporation, tirées de Oracle PL/SQL, guide de programmation. La syntaxe des paquetages incorporés, des fonctions prédéfinies et des pragmas restrict references, y est décrite de façon à couvrir les besoins des développeurs en PL/SQL. Vous apprendrez à utiliser ces extensions, y compris les nouveautés d'Oracle8, à étendre les fonctionnalités du PL/SQL et à réduire le volume de code de vos programmes. Dans la même collection, Oracle PL/SQL résume les aspects fondamentaux du langage PL/SQL.