Steven Feuerstein

John Beresniewicz

Charles Dye

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 programming language providing procedural extensions to the SQL relational database language and to an ever-growing number of oracle development tools. originally a rather limited tool, PL/SQL became with Oracle7 a mature and effective language for developers. now, with the introduction of Oracle8, PL/SQL has taken the next step towards becoming a fully realized programming language providing sophisticated object-oriented capabilities. Steven Feuerstein'sOracle PL/SQL Programming is a comprehensive guide to building applications with PL/SQL. That book has become the bible for PL/SQL developers who have raved about its completeness, readability, and practicality.Built-in packages are collections of PL/SQL objects built by Oracle Corporation and stored directly in the Oracle database. The functionality of these packages 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 first edition of Oracle PL/SQL Programming contained a chapter on Oracle's built-in packages. but there is much more to say about the basic PL/SQL packages than Feuerstein could fit in his first book. In addition, now that Oracle8 has been released, there are many new Oracle8 built-in packages not described in the PL/SQL book. There are also packages extensions for specific oracle environments such as distributed database. hence this book.Oracle Built-in Packages pulls together information about how to use the calling interface (API) to Oracle's Built-in Packages, and provides extensive examples on using the built-in packages effectively.The windows diskette included with the book contains the companion guide, 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.The table of contents follows:PrefacePart I: Overview 1. Introduction Part II: Application Development Packages Executing Dynamic SQL and PL/SQL Intersession Communication User Lock and Transaction Management Oracle Advanced Queuing Generating Output from PL/SQL Programs Defining an Application Profile Managing Large Objects Datatype Packages Miscellaneous Packages Part III: Server Management Packages Managing Session Information Managing Server Resources Job Scheduling in the Database Part IV: Distributed Database Packages Snapshots Advanced Replication Conflict Resolution Deferred Transactions and Remote Procedure Calls Appendix. What's on the companion disk?

Oracle Development Languages

Oracle Built-in Packages

Michael Rosenblum

Sue Harper

Melanie Caffrey

Riyaj Shamsudeen

Connor McDonald

Dominic Delmolino

Lewis Cunningham

Torben Holm

Robyn Sands

Ron Crisco

Martin Bchi

Adrian Billington

Stephan Petit

Arup Nanda

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

for Oracle Developers and DBAs

Expert PL/SQL Practices

Chip Dawes

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 PL/SQL Built-ins Pocket Reference

John Beresniewicz

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