Pribyl Bill - Oracle PL/SQL Programming

• Implementing crucial business rules in the Oracle Server with PL/SQL-based stored procedures and database triggers

• Generating and managing XML documents entirely within the database

• Linking web pages to an Oracle database

• Implementing and automating database administration tasksfrom establishing row-level security to managing rollback segments within PL/SQL programs

• A full range of datatypes from number to string, and including complex data structures such as records (which are similar to rows in a relational table), collections (which are Oracles version of arrays), and XMLType (for managing XML documents in Oracle and through PL/SQL)

• An explicit and highly readable block structure that makes it easy to enhance and maintain PL/SQL applications

• Conditional, iterative, and sequential control statements, including a CASE statement and three different kinds of loops

• Exception handlers for use in event-based error handling

• Named, reusable code elements such as functions, procedures, triggers, object types (akin to object-oriented classes), and packages (collections of related programs and variables)

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Oracles reference manuals may describe all the features of the PL/SQL language, but they dont tell you how to apply the technology. In fact, in some cases, youll be lucky to even understand how to use a given feature after youve made your way through the railroad diagrams. Books and training courses tend to cover the same standard topics in the same limited way. In this book, Ill venture beyond the basics to the far reaches of the language, finding the nonstandard ways that a particular feature can be tweaked to achieve a desired result.

You dont spend your days and nights writing PL/SQL modules so that you can rise to a higher plane of existence. You use PL/SQL to solve problems for your company or your customers. In this book, I try hard to help you tackle real-world problems, the kinds of issues developers face on a daily basis (at least those problems that can be solved with mere software). To do this, Ive packed the book with examplesnot just small code fragments, but substantial application components that you can apply immediately to your own situations. There is a good deal of code in the book itself, and much more on the accompanying web site. In a number of cases, I use the code examples to guide you through the analytical process needed to come up with a solution. In this way youll see, in the most concrete terms, how to apply PL/SQL features and undocumented applications of those features to a particular situation.

PL/SQL and the rest of the Oracle products offer the potential for incredible development productivity. If you arent careful, however, this capability will simply let you dig yourself into a deeper, darker hole than youve ever found yourself in before. I would consider this book a failure if it only helped programmers write more code in less time; I want to help you develop the skills and techniques to build applications that readily adapt to change and that are easily understood and maintained. I want to teach you to use comprehensive strategies and code architectures that allow you to apply PL/SQL in powerful, general ways to the problems you face.

Both the authors and OReilly Media are committed to providing comprehensive, useful coverage of PL/SQL over the life of the language. This fifth edition of Oracle PL/SQL Programming describes the features and capabilities of PL/SQL up through Oracle Database 11 g Release 2. I assume for this edition that Oracle Database 11