Oracle SQL Plus Pocket Reference

Jonathan Gennick

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1565929411 ISBN 13: 9781565929418

Publisher: O'Reilly Media, 2000

This pocket reference provides quick reference information that will help you use SQLPlus, Oracle's interactive query tool. It summarizes all of the SQLPlus syntax, including the syntax for new Oracle8i release 8.1.6 features.SQLPlus is available at every Oracle site--from the largest data warehouse to the smallest single-user system--and it's a critical tool for virtually every Oracle user. Despite its wide use, few developers and DBAs know how powerful a tool SQLPlus can be.This book boils down the most vital information from Gennick's best-selling book, Oracle SQLPlus: The Definitive Guide, into an accessible summary. It concisely describes interacting with SQLPlus, selecting data, formatting reports with SQLPlus, and tuning SQL queries. It also contains quick references to the SQLPlus commands and format elements.This book is an indispensable companion to O'Reilly bestselling book, Oracle SQLPlus: The Definitive Guide, but it does not replace it; the larger book is truly the definitive guide, suitable for readers at all levels of expertise. The definitive guide describes the many tasks that SQLPlus can perform, and provides a tutorial on many SQLPlus topics. But this quick reference is an excellent, portable resource for readers who want a pocket-sized summary of SQLPlus capabilities and a reminder of how to issue specific commands and formatting options for SQLPlus.Table of Contents:

1. Interacting with SQL

Plus

Selecting Data

Formatting Reports

Tuning SQL

SQLPlus Format Elements

SQLPlus Command Reference

Product Description:

O'Reilly Media

Review:

This small slim volume is a concise guide to using Oracle's SQL*Plus tool which acts as a front-end to the SQL querying language. Oracle SQL*Plus Pocket Reference does not attempt to teach you how to use the language but provides a quick reference to the commands available and the ways in which they can be pressed into service.

It's terse but informative, as befits a pocket guide, and so small that the usually entertaining O'Reilly colophon is omitted--which is a shame. The first half covers basic interactions such as string handling and naming variables, moving on to deal with selecting data, formatting reports and tuning SQL statements plus a section on formatting elements that let you do almost anything with number and date displays, including showing dates with a BC or AD indicator. In the tuning section there is brief coverage of execution plans for SQL statements and of how to tune the Oracle optimiser that puts those plans into operation. The second half forms the SQL command reference section, everything from ACCEPT to WHENEVER.

This eminently pocketable reference book would be invaluable for jogging the memory in those odd moments of blankness-- and it's almost palmable if you're shy about admitting fallibility. --Mark Whitehorn