Oracle PL/SQL by Example

by Benjamin Rosenzweig, Elena Rakhimov

Overview

Using PL/SQL for Oracle Database 21c, you can build solutions that deliver unprecedented performance and efficiency in any environment, including the cloud. Oracle PL/SQL by Example, Sixth Edition, teaches all the PL/SQL skills you'll need, through real-world labs and extensive examples. Now fully updated for the newest version of PL/SQL 21c, it covers everything from basic syntax and program control through the latest optimization and tuning enhancements.

Step by step, you'll walk through every key task, mastering today's most valuable Oracle 21c PL/SQL programming techniques on your own. Start by downloading the supporting schema and exercises from informit.com/title/9780138062835. Once you've done an exercise, the author doesn't just present the answer: She offers an in-depth discussion introducing deeper insights and modern best practices.

This book's approach fully reflects the author's award-winning experience teaching PL/SQL to professionals at Columbia University in New York City. New database developers and DBAs can use it to get productive fast; experienced PL/SQL programmers will find it to be a superb Oracle Database 21c solutions reference.

New in This Edition

• Updated code examples throughout
• New iteration controls for the FOR LOOP statement, such as stepped range, multiple iterations, collection, and cursor iterations
• Enhancements for PL/SQL qualified expressions
• Performance enhancements for PL/SQL functions, such as SQL macro, and better control of the result cache

Other Topics Covered

• Mastering basic PL/SQL concepts and language fundamentals, and understanding SQL's role in PL/SQL
• Using conditional and iterative program controls
• Efficiently handling errors and exceptions
• Working with cursors and triggers, including compound triggers
• Using stored procedures, functions, and packages to write modular code that other programs can run
• Working with collections, object-relational features, native dynamic SQL, bulk SQL, and other advanced features

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780138062835
Publisher:	Pearson Education
Publication date:	05/21/2023
Series:	Oracle Press Database and Data Science
Edition description:	6th ed.
Pages:	480
Product dimensions:	7.00(w) x 9.13(h) x 0.90(d)

About the Author

Elena Rakhimov has more than 20 years of experience in software architecture and development in a wide spectrum of enterprise and business environments ranging from nonprofit organizations to Wall Street to her current position with a prominent consulting company. Her determination to stay “hands-on” notwithstanding, Elena managed to excel in the academic arena, having taught relational database programming at Columbia University's highly esteemed Computer Technology and Applications program. She was educated in database analysis and design at Columbia University and in applied mathematics at Baku State University in Azerbaijan.

Read an Excerpt

Preface

Oracle PL/SQL by Example, 3rd edition, presents the Oracle PL/SQL programming language in a unique and highly effective format. It challenges you to learn Oracle PL/SQL by using it rather than by simply reading about it.Just as a grammar workbook would teach you about nouns and verbs by first showing you examples and then asking you to write sentences, Oracle PL/SQL by Example teaches you about cursors, loops, procedures, triggers, and so on by first showing you examples and then asking you to create these objects yourself.Who This Book Is For

This book is intended for anyone who needs a quick but detailed introduction to programming with Oracle's PL/SQL language. The ideal readers are those with some relational database experience, with some Oracle experience, specifically with SQL and SQL*Plus, but with little or no experience with PL/SQL or with most other programming languages.

The content of this book is based on the material that is taught in an Introduction to PL/SQL class at Columbia University's Computer Technology and Applications (CTA) program in New York City. The student body is rather diverse, in that there are some students who have years of experience with information technology (IT) and programming, but no experience with Oracle PL/SQL, and then there are those with absolutely no experience in IT or programming. The content of the book, like the class, is balanced to meet the needs of both extremes. The exercises in this book can be used as lab and homework assignments to accompany the lectures in such a PL/SQL course.How This Book Is Organized

The intent of this workbook is to teach you about Oracle PL/SQL by presenting you witha series of challenges followed by detailed solutions to those challenges. The basic structure of each chapter is as follows:

Chapter
- Lab
- - Exercises
- - Exercise Answers (with detailed discussion)
- - Self-Review Questions
- Lab...Test Your Thinking Questions

Each chapter contains interactive labs that introduce topics about Oracle PL/SQL. The topics are discussed briefly and then explored though exercises, which are the heart of each lab.

Each exercise consists of a series of steps that you will follow to perform a specific task, along with questions that are designed to help you discover the important things about PL/SQL programming on your own. The answers to these questions are given at the end of the Exercises, along with more in-depth discussion of the concepts explored.

The exercises are not meant to be closed-book quizzes to test your knowledge. On the contrary, they are intended to act as your guide and walk you through a task. You are encouraged to flip back and forth from the exercise question section to the exercise answer section so that, if need be, you can read the answers and discussions as you go along.

At the end of each lab is a series of multiple-choice self-review questions. These are meant to be closed-book quizzes to test how well you understood the lab material. The answers to these questions appear in Appendix A.Finally, at the end of each chapter you will find a Test Your Thinking section, which consists of a series of projects designed to solidify all of the skills you have learned in the chapter. If you have successfully completed all of the labs in the chapter, you should be able to tackle these projects with few problems. You will find guidance and/or solutions to these in Appendix D and at the companion Web site.

Table of Contents

Preface xvii
Introduction to PL/SQL New Features in Oracle 21c xxiii
Chapter 1 PL/SQL Concepts 1
Lab 1.1: PL/SQL Architecture 2
PL/SQL Architecture 2
PL/SQL Block Structure 5
How PL/SQL Gets Executed 9
Lab 1.2: PL/SQL Development Environment 10
Getting Started with SQL Developer 10
Getting Started with SQL*Plus 13
Executing PL/SQL Scripts 14
Lab 1.3: PL/SQL: The Basics 18
DBMS_OUTPUT.PUT_LINE Statement 18
Substitution Variable Feature 21
Summary 25
Chapter 2 PL/SQL Language Fundamentals 27
Lab 2.1: PL/SQL Language Components 27
PL/SQL Variables 29
PL/SQL Reserved Words 31
Delimiters 32
Literals in PL/SQL 33
Lab 2.2: Anchored Data Types 33
Lab 2.3: Scope of a Variable, Block, Nested Blocks, and Labels 35
Scope of a Variable 35
Nested Blocks and Labels 36
Summary 38
Chapter 3 SQL in PL/SQL 39
Lab 3.1: SQL Statements in PL/SQL 39
Initializing Variables with the SELECT INTO Statement 40
Using DML Statements in a PL/SQL Block 41
Using a Sequence in a PL/SQL Block 43
Lab 3.2: Transaction Control in PL/SQL 44
The COMMIT, ROLLBACK, and SAVEPOINT Statements 44
The SET TRANSACTION Statement 47
Summary 48
Chapter 4 Conditional Control: IF Statements 49
Lab 4.1: IF Statements 50
IF-THEN Statements 50
IF-THEN-ELSE Statements 52
Lab 4.2: ELSIF Statements 55
Lab 4.3: Nested IF Statements 59
Logical Operators 61
Summary 62
Chapter 5 Conditional Control: CASE Statements 65
Lab 5.1: CASE Statements 65
CASE Statements 66
Searched CASE Statements 68
Lab 5.2: CASE Expressions 74
Lab 5.3: NULLIF and COALESCE Functions 78
NULLIF Function 78
COALESCE Function 80
Summary 82
Chapter 6 Iterative Control: Part I 85
Lab 6.1: Simple Loops 86
EXIT Statement 87
EXIT WHEN Statement 91
Lab 6.2: WHILE Loops 92
Using WHILE Loops 92
Terminating the WHILE Loop Prematurely 95
Lab 6.3: Numeric FOR Loops 97
Using the IN Option in the Loop 100
Using the REVERSE Option in the Loop 103
Using Iteration Controls in the Loop 104
Terminating the Numeric FOR Loop Prematurely 108
Summary 109
Chapter 7 Iterative Control: Part II 111
Lab 7.1: CONTINUE Statement 111
Using the CONTINUE Statement 112
Using the CONTINUE WHEN Statement 116
Lab 7.2: Nested Loops 119
Using Nested Loops 119
Using Loop Labels 120
Summary 122
Chapter 8 Error Handling and Built-in Exceptions 125
Lab 8.1: Handling Errors 125
Lab 8.2: Built-in Exceptions 128
Summary 133
Chapter 9 Exceptions 135
Lab 9.1: Exception Scope 135
Lab 9.2: User-Defined Exceptions 139
Lab 9.3: Exception Propagation 143
Re-raising Exceptions 148
Summary 149
Chapter 10 Exceptions: Advanced Concepts 151
Lab 10.1: RAISE_APPLICATION_ERROR 151
Lab 10.2: EXCEPTION_INIT Pragma 155
Lab 10.3: SQLCODE and SQLERRM 157
Summary 160
Chapter 11 Introduction to Cursors 161
Lab 11.1: Types of Cursors 162
Implicit Cursor 162
Explicit Cursor 164
Lab 11.2: Table-Based and Cursor-Based Records 171
Table-Based Records 172
Cursor-Based Records 174
Lab 11.3: Cursor FOR Loops 175
Lab 11.4: Nested Cursors 177
Summary 179
Chapter 12 Advanced Cursors 181
Lab 12.1: Parameterized Cursors 181
Lab 12.2: Cursor Variables and Expressions 186
Cursor Variables 187
Cursor Expressions 193
Lab 12.3: FOR UPDATE Cursors 196
Summary 199
Chapter 13 Triggers 201
Lab 13.1: What Triggers Are 201
Database Trigger 202
BEFORE Triggers 205
AFTER Triggers 210
Autonomous Transaction 211
Lab 13.2: Types of Triggers 213
Row and Statement Triggers 213
INSTEAD OF Triggers 215
Summary 219
Chapter 14 Mutating Tables and Compound Triggers 221
Lab 14.1: Mutating Tables 221
Lab 14.2: Compound Triggers 223
Summary 228
Chapter 15 Collections 229
Lab 15.1: PL/SQL Tables 230
Associative Arrays 231
Nested Tables 233
Collection Methods 236
Lab 15.2: Varrays 240
Lab 15.3: Multidimensional Collections 245
Lab 15.4: Collection Iteration Controls and
Qualified Expressions 247
Collection Iteration Controls 247
Qualified Expressions 251
Summary 258
Chapter 16 Records 259
Lab 16.1: User-Defined Records 259
User-Defined Records 260
Qualified Expressions with Records 262
Record Compatibility 263
Lab 16.2: Nested Records 265
Lab 16.3: Collections of Records 268
Summary 271
Chapter 17 Native Dynamic SQL 273
Lab 17.1: EXECUTE IMMEDIATE Statements 274
EXECUTE IMMEDIATE Statement 275
Lab 17.2: OPEN FOR, FETCH, and CLOSE Statements 283
Summary 287
Chapter 18 Bulk SQL 289
Lab 18.1: FORALL Statements 290
FORALL Statements 290
SAVE EXCEPTIONS Option 294
INDICES OF Option 296
VALUES OF Option 297
Lab 18.2: The BULK COLLECT Clause 299
Lab 18.3: Binding Collections in SQL Statements 308
Binding Collections with EXECUTE IMMEDIATE Statements 308
Binding Collections with OPEN FOR, FETCH, and CLOSE Statements 314
Summary 318
Chapter 19 Procedures 319
Lab 19.1: Creating Nested Procedures 320
Nested Procedures 320
Parameter Modes 321
Forward Declaration 326
Lab 19.2: Creating Stand-Alone Procedures 327
Summary 330
Chapter 20 Functions 331
Lab 20.1: Creating Nested Functions 331
Lab 20.2: Creating Stand-Alone Functions 336
Summary 340
Chapter 21 Packages 341
Lab 21.1: Creating Packages 341
Creating a Package Specification 342
Creating a Package Body 343
Lab 21.2: Package Instantiation and Initialization 348
Package Instantiation and Initialization 349
Package State 351
Lab 21.3: SERIALLY_REUSABLE Packages 351
Summary 356
Chapter 22 Stored Code Advanced Concepts 357
Lab 22.1: Subprogram Overloading 357
Lab 22.2: Result-Cached Functions 363
Lab 22.3: Invoking PL/SQL Functions from SQL Statements 366
Invoking Functions in SQL Statements 367
Using Pipelined Table Functions 368
Using SQL Macros 370
Summary 375
Chapter 23 Object Types in Oracle 379
Lab 23.1: Object Types 380
Creating Object Types 381
Using Object Types with Collections 385
Lab 23.2: Object Type Methods 388
Using Constructor Methods 389
Using Member Methods 392
Using Static Methods 393
Comparing Objects 393
Summary 398
Chapter 24 Storing Object Types in Tables 399
Lab 24.1: Storing Object Types in Relational Tables 400
Lab 24.2: Storing Object Types in Object Tables 403
Lab 24.3: Type Evolution 405
Summary 410
Chapter 25 Dynamic SQL with the DBMS_SQL Package 411
Lab 25.1: Generating Dynamic SQL with the DBMS_SQL Package 412
Summary 420
Appendix A PL/SQL Formatting Guide 421
Case 421
Whitespace 421
Naming Conventions 422
Comments 423
Appendix B Student Database Schema 425
Table and Column Descriptions 425


9780138062835 TOC 4/20/2023

Introduction

Preface

Oracle PL/SQL by Example, 3rd edition, presents the Oracle PL/SQL programming language in a unique and highly effective format. It challenges you to learn Oracle PL/SQL by using it rather than by simply reading about it. Just as a grammar workbook would teach you about nouns and verbs by first showing you examples and then asking you to write sentences, Oracle PL/SQL by Example teaches you about cursors, loops, procedures, triggers, and so on by first showing you examples and then asking you to create these objects yourself.

Who This Book Is For

This book is intended for anyone who needs a quick but detailed introduction to programming with Oracle's PL/SQL language. The ideal readers are those with some relational database experience, with some Oracle experience, specifically with SQL and SQL*Plus, but with little or no experience with PL/SQL or with most other programming languages.

The content of this book is based on the material that is taught in an Introduction to PL/SQL class at Columbia University's Computer Technology and Applications (CTA) program in New York City. The student body is rather diverse, in that there are some students who have years of experience with information technology (IT) and programming, but no experience with Oracle PL/SQL, and then there are those with absolutely no experience in IT or programming. The content of the book, like the class, is balanced to meet the needs of both extremes. The exercises in this book can be used as lab and homework assignments to accompany the lectures in such a PL/SQL course.

How This Book Is Organized

The intent of this workbook is to teach you about Oracle PL/SQL bypresenting you with a series of challenges followed by detailed solutions to those challenges. The basic structure of each chapter is as follows:

Chapter
- Lab
- - Exercises
- - Exercise Answers (with detailed discussion)
- - Self-Review Questions
- Lab...

Test Your Thinking Questions

Each chapter contains interactive labs that introduce topics about Oracle PL/SQL. The topics are discussed briefly and then explored though exercises, which are the heart of each lab.

Each exercise consists of a series of steps that you will follow to perform a specific task, along with questions that are designed to help you discover the important things about PL/SQL programming on your own. The answers to these questions are given at the end of the Exercises, along with more in-depth discussion of the concepts explored.

The exercises are not meant to be closed-book quizzes to test your knowledge. On the contrary, they are intended to act as your guide and walk you through a task. You are encouraged to flip back and forth from the exercise question section to the exercise answer section so that, if need be, you can read the answers and discussions as you go along.

At the end of each lab is a series of multiple-choice self-review questions. These are meant to be closed-book quizzes to test how well you understood the lab material. The answers to these questions appear in Appendix A. Finally, at the end of each chapter you will find a Test Your Thinking section, which consists of a series of projects designed to solidify all of the skills you have learned in the chapter. If you have successfully completed all of the labs in the chapter, you should be able to tackle these projects with few problems. You will find guidance and/or solutions to these in Appendix D and at the companion Web site.