Product Description

SQL (Structured Query Language) is the heart of a relational database management system. It's the language used to query the database, to create new tables in the database, to update and delete database fields, and to set privileges in the database. Oracle SQL: The Essential Reference is for everyone who needs to access an Oracle database using SQL--developers, DBAs, designers, and managers. SQL is based on research dating back to the late 1960s, but its first commercial release was in the RDBMS announced by the fledgling Oracle Corporation in 1979. Since that time, every other database vendor has adopted SQL, and ANSI and the ISO have made it a standard. Although vendors diverge in their extensions to SQL, the core language is standard across vendor boundaries. Despite SQL's long history and relative simplicity, few developers and database administrators are truly masters of SQL. The constant stream of vendor enhancements, the hard-won experience in tuning SQL for best performance, and the requirements of particular operational environments mean that there is always more to learn about SQL. Oracle SQL: The Essential Reference delivers all the information needed to keep ahead of the learning curve on standard SQL and Oracle's extensions to it. This single, concise reference volume will hold its own against a stack of Oracle manuals and even yield insights and examples not available in those manuals. There are chapters on basic SQL elements (naming requirements, column types, pseudo-types, data conversion rules, operators); Data Definition Language (DDL) and Data Manipulation Language (DML); common language elements (constraints, storage clause, predicates); SQL functions; PL/SQL (including procedures, functions, and packages); SQL*Plus, and Oracle SQL optimization and tuning. The book covers Oracle 8i, release 8.1.6.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #871130 in Books
• Published on: 2000-09-26
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 415 pages

Amazon.co.uk Review
For those who like to know the background and context of a subject, the 17-page foreword in Oracle SQL: The Essential Reference by Ken Jacobs, an Oracle Corporation Vice Principal, is a treat. It traces the development of SQL from its first highly mathematical beginnings as defined by Codd nearly 30 years ago to the current SQL-1999 standard.

The book proper is a self-confessed reference book, presenting the topic as concisely as possible. Users are expected to be developers and database administrators who are "somewhat familiar" with the relational model and SQL. Strangely the author appears to be less familiar than he should be with some aspects of the model, stating as he does that the relational model is so called because tables can be "related". Codd would despair: a relation is simply a mathematical term for a table. Furthermore, Kreines describes an outer join without covering the two flavours--left outer and right outer. The distinction may be trivial but it is likely that both terms will be encountered by anyone working with SQL for any length of time.

Happily things improve dramatically when we reach the nitty gritty of SQL and PL/SQL statements. Contents include chapters on two subsets of SQL, Data Definition Language (DDL) and Data Manipulation Language (DML): the first is for manipulating the data structure--removing tables, adding columns and so on--and the latter manipulates data--inserting, changing and retrieving it. The highly useful aggregate functions for summarising data get a chapter too, as do the Oracle tools for optimising queries, EXPLAIN PLAN and SQL Trace.

Ultimately this is a highly useful reference to Oracle's implementation of SQL and, since this is an O'Reilly book with a trademark "animal" cover, I now also know that scorpions fluoresce in ultra violet light. --Mark Whitehorn

Wayne Graham, Williamsburg Macromedia User's Group, March 2003
'Oracle SQL The Essential Reference' is a great reference book for those individuals using an Oracle Database.

From the Publisher
Everything Oracle developers and DBAs need to know about standard SQL (Structured Query Language) and Oracle's extensions to it is in this single, concise reference volume. Quick-reference chapters investigate basic SQL elements, Data Definition Language (DDL) and Data Manipulation Language (DML), SQL functions, PL/SQL, SQL*Plus, and Oracle SQL optimization and tuning. The book covers Oracle8i, release 8.1.6.

Customer Reviews

Useful as a bridging reference.
I wanted a book that covered Oracle SQL syntax. I've been programming SQL in a number of databases and wanted something that allowed me to dive into a specific Oracle SQL command syntax and show me what I could do or how to achieve the result I was looking for (including some examples). This book states that it is a reference and that is exactly what it does. It provides you with a comprehensive reference for Oracle SQL command syntax. I believe this book is really aimed at the more advanced end of the market (i.e. Those that know what they are doing, but need a nudge in the right direction to get it done.)

So from my point of view, this gets 5 stars. I was not after a 800 page book, but a concise easy to use reference for Oracle SQL.

Don't bother
The book is a barely acceptable reference to SQL in an Oracle environment. By the authors' own admission it is concise, I would say lightweight and flimsy (and I'm not referring to the binding). Not appropriate for beginners or veterans. Unfortunately it attempts to cover PL/SQL and SQL Plus and this just saps space from an already thin volume and does not do either of these areas justice. One is left with the question, 'Why?'

For once the O'Reilly offering for this topic is far inferior to that offered by Oracle Press.

So if you're considering this book, my advice would be, 'do not bother'.

A good quick-reference
After 10 years of other databases, I'm now doing Oracle work and this seemed the best quick guide to the nuances of Oracle. A quick-reference rather than a deep work, but what do you expect in a single general reference...