Product Description

Computer professionals increasingly rely on the Web, online help, and other online information sources to relieve information pain. Now O'Reilly's Oracle PL/SQL CD Bookshelf allows convenient online access to updates of favorite O'Reilly Oracle books. The Oracle PL/SQL CD Bookshelf contains a powerhouse of Animal books for the Oracle PL/SQL developer--all readable with a web browser on a convenient CD-ROM. A bonus hard-copy book, Oracle PL/SQL Programming: A Guide to Oracle 8i Features, is also included. In addition, the CD-ROM includes the complete text of seven books: Oracle PL/SQL Programming; Advanced PL/SQL Programming; Oracle Web Applications; Oracle Built-in Packages; Oracle PL/SQL Pocket Reference; Oracle Built-ins Pocket Reference; and Oracle PL/SQL Programming: A Guide to Oracle 8i Features. Never has it been easier to learn, or look up, needed information. Formatted in HTML, The Oracle PL/SQL CD Bookshelf can be read by any web browser. The books are fully searchable and cross-referenced. In addition to individual indexes for each book, there's a master index for the entire library.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #1309665 in Books
• Published on: 2000-08-16
• Platforms: Windows 98, Windows Me, Windows 2000, Windows XP
• Subtitled in: English
• Number of items: 1
• Dimensions: .94" h x 7.17" w x 9.41" l, 1.44 pounds
• Binding: Paperback
• 285 pages

Amazon.co.uk Review
This package from O'Reilly is a wonderfully comprehensive resource for anyone working with Oracle. On the CD-ROM is the full text of seven authoritative tomes: five of which are chunky books and two useful pocket references (though their pocketability is somewhat reduced in this format).

The CD-ROM provides a web interface with a combined index for all the texts, citing the source book and giving a clickable link. It's not a perfect index, however: searching for "definer rights", a five-page section in one book, produced no entry. But isn't that always the way with indexes? They're stuffed with entries except for the ones you want.

The superhumanly industrious Steven Feuerstein is either sole or joint author of all bar one of these books and his approachable writing style on such weighty topics is always welcome. Despite that, none of these books is an ideal introduction to Oracle for the complete beginner--all are aimed at those with development experience, who are programming or who intend to start. Whatever the goal, whether it's gaining an understanding of built-in packages (which let you associate related program elements for re-use time and time again) or producing a web-based database application, there is likely to be something relevant in this collection of goodies. --Mark Whitehorn

Excerpted from The Oracle PL/SQL CD Bookshelf by O'Reilly, Associates, O'Reilly & Associates. Copyright © 2000. Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.
Oracle PL/SQL Programming: Guide to Oracle8i Features
Chapter 4 Native Dynamic SQL in Oracle8i
In this chapter:
DBMS_SQL Versus NDS
NDS Statement Summary
Multirow Queries with Cursor Variables
Binding Variables
Working with Objects and Collections
Building Applications with NDS
NDS Utility Package
Ever since Oracle 7.1, we PL/SQL developers have been able to use the built-in DBMS_SQL package to execute dynamic SQL and PL/SQL. This means, for example, that at runtime you can construct a query, a DELETE statement, a CREATE TABLE statement, or even a PL/SQL block as a string--and then execute it. Dynamic SQL comes in extremely handy when you are building ad hoc query systems, when you need to execute DDL inside PL/SQL, and just generally when you don't know in advance exactly what you need to do or what the user will want to do. Dynamic SQL is a frequent requirement in Web-based applications.
But there are some problems with DBMS_SQL:
It is a very complicated package.
It has a number of restrictions (such as not recognizing and being able to work with new Oracle8 datatypes).
It is relatively slow.
So our dear friends at PL/SQL Central in Redwood Shores took pity on us all and reimplemented dynamic SQL directly in the PL/SQL language itself. This new facility is called native dynamic SQL. I will refer to it as NDS in this chapter.
Here's the free advertisement for Oracle Corporation: NDS is faster and easier than DBMS_SQL. Truth in advertising? Absolutely, although my tests indicate that with the performance enhancements already in place for DBMS_SQL, NDS is on average just slightly faster. There is no doubt, however, that NDS is much easier to use--when you can use it.
Before diving into the syntax and details of NDS, let's take a look at a comparison between the two approaches to dynamic SQL.
DBMS_SQL Versus NDS
Let's compare the DBMS_SQL and NDS implementations of a program that displays all the employees for the specified and very dynamic WHERE clause.
The DBMS_SQL implementation:
CREATE OR REPLACE PROCEDURE showemps (
where_in IN VARCHAR2 := NULL)
IS
cur INTEGER := DBMS_SQL.OPEN_CURSOR;
rec employee%ROWTYPE;
fdbk INTEGER;
BEGIN
DBMS_SQL.PARSE

(cur,

'SELECT employee_id, last_name

FROM employee

WHERE ' || NVL (where_in, '1=1'),

DBMS_SQL.NATIVE);

DBMS_SQL.DEFINE_COLUMN (cur, 1, 1);
DBMS_SQL.DEFINE_COLUMN (cur, 2, user, 30);

fdbk := DBMS_SQL.EXECUTE (cur);
LOOP

/* Fetch next row. Exit when done. */

EXIT WHEN DBMS_SQL.FETCH_ROWS (cur) = 0;

DBMS_SQL.COLUMN_VALUE (cur, 1, rec.employee_id);

DBMS_SQL.COLUMN_VALUE (cur, 2, rec.last_name);

DBMS_OUTPUT.PUT_LINE (

TO_CHAR (rec.employee_id) || '=' ||

rec.last_name);
END LOOP;

DBMS_SQL.CLOSE_CURSOR (cur);

Customer Reviews

Very good for people with a bit of experience already !
I would suugest this book to really good programmes or someone with already a good knowledge about PL/SQL. Still good for beginners with talent to spare and patient to give away !