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

What''s New in the Second Edition?

The first edition of this book was published in March 1999. At the
time, I didn''t think that SQL*Plus would ever change
much. After all, it was a mature product, and certainly, I thought,
Oracle would focus its creative energies elsewhere. I was wrong. It
was that same year, at OracleWorld 1999, I believe, when I first
learned about the new SET MARKUP command and the impending addition
of HTML output to the SQL*Plus repertoire. And as if that
wasn''t surprise enough, those HTML capabilities were
the prelude to a full-blown, three-tier, browser-based version of my
favorite and most used command-line utility that we now know as

i SQL*Plus. So, the first thing I did when
revising this book was to add coverage for these and other new
developments that have taken place over the years:

Following the chapter on interacting with command-line SQL*Plus,
you''ll find the new Chapter 3
covering the use of the new, browser-based

i SQL*Plus.

It turns out that you can use the HTML capabilities represented by
SET MARKUP to generate some impressive-looking web pages, and thus
SQL*Plus is one tool that you can use to develop database-backed web
reports. Chapter 6 shows you how.

One of the strengths of this book is that it uses SQL*Plus as an
excuse to range over a wide swath of Oracle functionality, perhaps
making the book a reasonably good introduction to Oracle as opposed
to just SQL*Plus. For example, Chapter 9, after
showing you how to extract data, goes on to introduce you to the
equally venerable SQL*Loader utility. Some of the Oracle
functionality that I cover has been updated and enhanced, leading me
to likewise update this book''s coverage:

To Chapter 9, I''ve added an
introduction to the external table feature introduced in
Oracle9
i Database. External tables provide you
with SELECT statement access to external data, greatly increasing
your options for transforming such data during a load.

Chapter 12, which covers the use of EXPLAIN PLAN
to show execution plans for SQL statements, has been updated to
reflect all the hints supported by Oracle Database
10
g . This chapter also shows the use of the new
DBMS_XPLAN package introduced in Oracle9
i
Database Release 2. That package makes it easier than ever before to
generate a well-formatted display of an execution plan.

Finally, I''ve been privileged to receive many reader
comments and suggestions over the years that have led to many
improvements and changes throughout the book. These range from the
minor (but oh so useful!) information, such as K.
Vainstein''s suggestion in Chapter 10 for using PROMPT to remind users of
command-line arguments, to the addition of an entirely new chapter,
consisting of a lightning tutorial on SQL.

I''m pleased with the way this second edition has
turned out, and I hope you will be too. I''ve tried
to keep all the good from the first edition while adding new content
in response to reader suggestions and Oracle''s
product enhancements. While doing all that work,
I''ve had two of the pickiest and most careful Oracle
people that I know, Tom Kyte and Gregor Theis, looking over my
shoulder and pointing out mistakes, suggesting ways that I could say
things better and more clearly, and even offering up for inclusion a
few useful techniques that I hadn''t thought of. You
hold the result in your hands, and all of us who have been involved
hope you are well satisfied with the value between the two covers.