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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.