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| ORACLE PL/SQL BUILT-INS POCKET REFERENCE |
This pocket reference provides quick-reference information that will help you use oracle corporation's extensive set of built-in functions and packages, including those new to oracle8.
oracle's pl/sql language is a programming language providing procedural extensions to the sql relational database language and to an ever-growing number of oracle development tools. among the most useful constructs in the pl/sql language are the built-in functions and packages.
built-in functions are constructs that operate on certain types of data (e.g., numeric, character) to return a result. by using functions, you can minimize the coding you need to do in your programs. functions are described in detail in steven feuerstein's oracle pl/sql programming; this comprehensive guide to building applications with pl/sql has become the bible for pl/sql developers who have raved about its completeness, readability, and practicality.
built-in functions fall into several major categories:
* character functions: operate on character data. examples include concat (concatenates two strings into one), length (returns the length of a string), and replace (replaces a character sequence in a string with a different set of characters).
* date functions: operate on dates and supplement the date datatype. examples include sysdate (returns the current date and time in the oracle server) and last_day (returns the last day in the month of the specified date).
* numeric functions: operate on numeric data. examples include ceil (returns the smallest integer greater than or equal to the specified number) and power (returns a number raised to a particular power).
* lob functions: operate on large object data. examples include empty_blob (returns an empty locator of the binary large object type) and empty_clob (returns an empty locator of the character large object type).
* conversion functions: perform explicit conversions of different types of data. examples include to_char (converts a number or date to a string) and to_number (converts a string to a number).
* miscellaneous functions. examples include greatest (returns the greatest of the specified list of values) and uid (returns the user id of the current oracle session).
built-in packages (collections of pl/sql objects, such as functions, procedures, and data structures) greatly expand the scope of the pl/sql language. these packages are described in detail in feuerstein's and beresniewicz's book, oracle built-in packages. built-in packages are built by oracle corporation and stored directly in the oracle database. the functionality of the built-ins is available from any programming environment that can call pl/sql stored procedures, including visual basic, oracle developer/2000, oracle application server (for web-based development), and, of course, the oracle database itself.
built-in packages extend the capabilities and power of pl/sql in many significant ways. for example:
* dbms_sql executes dynamically constructed sql statements and pl/sql blocks of code.
* dbms_pipe communicates between different oracle sessions through a pipe in the rdbms shared memory.
* dbms_job submits and manages regularly scheduled jobs for execution inside the database.
* dbms_lob accesses and manipulates oracle8's large objects (lobs) from within pl/sql programs.
the book shows how to call all of the commonly used built-in functions and packages. for packages, it also shows the restrict references pragmas (needed if you call packages from a sql statement), as well as the exceptions, constants, and data structures defined in the packages.
Author : Steven feuerstein, john beresniewicz, chip dawes
Publication : Oreilly
Isbn : 9788173661181
Store book number : 104
NRS 96.00
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