Oracle SQLPlus [Electronic resources] : The Definitive Guide, 2nd Edition نسخه متنی

Why I Wrote This Book

My motivation for writing this book stems from my early experiences
learning about the Oracle database. Oracle's
documentation tends to be narrowly focused, each manual discussing
only those things strictly related to the product being written
about, and the manual for SQL*Plus is no exception.
Oracle's manual will tell you about SQL*Plus but
only about SQL*Plus. There is little information on how to use
SQL*Plus in conjunction with other Oracle products such as PL/SQL or
SQL*Loader. There is also little information on using SQL*Plus to
perform common tasks like viewing a constraint definition or
extracting data.

I remember clearly the difficulties I had working with three manuals
spread out in front of me: the SQL manual, the SQL*Plus manual, and
the PL/SQL manual. I remember the frustration of frequently picking
up the wrong manual because I didn't understand
fully the relationship between these three products. Was DESCRIBE a
SQL statement? How could I use a SQL*Plus variable in a PL/SQL
script?

Even when I knew that something could be done with SQL*Plus, I
frequently didn't find clear direction in the Oracle
manuals. The first time I wrote a script to extract data to a file, I
spent quite a bit of time flipping back and forth in the manual and
experimenting with various commands before I finally got the results
I wanted. Things became even more complicated when I began to write
scripts and batch jobs with SQL*Plus. Suddenly I found myself wanting
to branch, and even to loop, from a SQL*Plus script. SQL*Plus
doesn't officially provide this functionality, but
there are some tricks you can put to good use.

Finally, this is the book I want to give my clients and coworkers
when they ask me how-to questions. Next time I'm
asked how to get data out of Oracle and into a comma-delimited file,
I'll just refer them to Chapter 9. When I'm asked about
formatting a report, I'll refer them to Chapter 5, and when I'm asked
how to write an IF statement in SQL*Plus, I'll refer
them to Chapter 11. Each of these chapters
presents a solution to its respective problem and leads you step by
step through the process of implementing that solution.