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SQL Interactive and Batch Processing

SQL*Plus provides an interactive and batch processing environment that dispatches commands to the SQL and PL/SQL engines. You can work either in the interactive SQL*Plus command-line interface (CLI) or in Oracle SQL Developer through a Java-based GUI. This section explains how to use these two primary interfaces to the SQL and PL/SQL engines. There are many other commercial products from other vendors that let you work with Oracle, but coverage of those products is beyond the scope of this book.

SQL*Plus Command-Line Interface

SQL*Plus is the client software for Oracle that runs SQL statements and anonymous block PL/SQL statements in an interactive and batch development environment. The statements are organized in the order that you generally encounter them as you start working with SQL*Plus or the MySQL Monitor.

Connecting to and Disconnecting from SQL*Plus

After installing the Oracle Database on the Linux OS, you access SQL*Plus from the command line. This works when the operating system finds the sqlplus executable in its path environment variable ($PATH on Linux). Linux installations require that you configure

When sqlplus is in the path environment variable, you can access it by typing the following:

sqlplus some_username/some_password

The preceding connect string may use IPC or the network to connect to the Oracle database. You can connect through the network by specifying a valid net service name, like this:

sqlplus some_username/some_password@some_net_service_name

While this works, and many people use it, you should simply enter your user name and let the database prompt you for the password. That way, it’s not displayed as clear text.

To avoid displaying your password, you should connect in the following way, which uses IPC:

sqlplus some_username

Or you can connect using the network layer by using a net service name like this:

sqlplus some_username@some_tns_alias

You’ll then see a password prompt. As you type your password, it is masked from prying eyes. The password also won’t be visible in the window of the command session.

The problem with either of these approaches is that you’ve disclosed your user account name at the operating system level. No matter how carefully you’ve host-hardened your operating system, there’s no reason to disclose unnecessary details. The recommended best practice for connecting at the command line is to use /nolog, like this:

sqlplus /nolog

After you’re connected as an authenticated user, you can switch to work as another user by using the following syntax, which discloses your password to the screen but not the session window:

SQL> CONNECT some_otheruser/some_password

Or you can connect through a net service name, like

SQL> CONNECT some_otheruser@net_service_name/some_password

Alternatively, you can connect with or without a net service name to avoid displaying your password:

SQL> CONNECT some_otheruser

As with the preceding initial authorization example, you are prompted for the password. Entering it in this way also protects it from prying eyes.

If you try to run the sqlplus executable and it fails with a message that it can’t find the sqlplus executable, you must correct that issue. Check whether the $ORACLE_HOME/bin is found in the respective $PATH environment variable. Like PATH, the ORACLE_HOME is also an operating system environment variable. ORACLE_HOME should point to where you installed the Oracle database.

You can use the following commands to check the contents of your path environment variable. Instructions for setting these are in the Oracle Database Installation Guide for your platform and release:

Linux or Unix:

echo $PATH

When you’ve connected to SQL*Plus, you will see the SQL> prompt, like:

SQL>

Working in the SQL*Plus Environment

Unlike other SQL environments, the SQL*Plus environment isn’t limited simply to running SQL statements. Originally, it was written as a SQL report writer. This means SQL*Plus contains a number of features to make it friendlier and more useful. (That’s why SQL*Plus was originally known as an Advanced Friendly Interface [AFI]). Examples of these friendlier and useful features include a set of well-designed formatting extensions that enables you to format and aggregate result set data. SQL*Plus also lets you interactively edit files from the command line.

This section explains how you can dynamically configure your environment to suit your needs for each connection, configure SQL*Plus to remember settings for every connection, discover features through the interactive help menus, and shell out of or exit the SQL*Plus environment.

Configuring SQL*Plus Environment You can configure your SQL*Plus environment in two ways. One requires that you configure it each time that you start a session (dynamically). The other requires that you configure the glogin.sql file, which is the first thing that runs after a user authenticates and establishes a connection with the database. The caveat to modifying the glogin.sql file is that any changes become universal for all users of the Oracle Database installation. Also, only the owner of the Oracle account can make these changes.

Dynamically Configuring SQL*Plus—

Every connection to SQL*Plus is configurable. Some developers choose to put these instructions inside their script files, while others prefer to type them as they go. Putting them in the script files means you have to know what options you have first. The SQL*Plus SHOW command lets you find all of them with the keyword ALL, like this:

SHOW ALL

The SQL*Plus SHOW command also lets you see the status of a given environment variable.

The following command displays the default value for the FEEDBACK environment variable:

SHOW FEEDBACK

It returns the default value unless you’ve altered the default by configuring it in the glogin.sql file. The oracle user has the rights to make any desired changes in this file, but they apply to all users who connect to the database.

The default value for FEEDBACK is

FEEDBACK ON FOR 6 OR more ROWS

By default, an Oracle database shows the number of rows touched by a SQL command only when six or more rows are affected. If you also want to show feedback when five or fewer rows are affected, the following syntax resets the environment variable:

SET FEEDBACK ON

It returns 0 or the number of rows affected by any SQL statement.
Setting these environment variables inside script files allows you to designate runtime behaviors, but you should also reset them to the default at the conclusion of the script. When they’re not reset at the end of a script, they can confuse a user expecting the default behaviors.

Configuring the Default SQL*Plus Environment File—The glogin.sql file is where you define override values for the environment variables. You might want to put many things beyond environment variable values into your glogin.sql configuration file. The most common is a setting for the default editor in Linux or Unix, because it’s undefined out of the box. You can set the default editor to the vi text editor in Linux by adding the following line to the glogin.sql file:

DEFINE _EDITOR=vi

The DEFINE keyword has two specialized uses in SQL*Plus. One lets you define substitution variables (sometimes called user variables) that act as session-level variables. The other lets you enable or disable the ampersand (&) symbol as a substitution variable operator. It is enabled by default because the DEFINE environment variable is ON by default. You disable the specialized role by setting DEFINE to OFF. SQL*Plus treats the ampersand (&) as an ordinary text character when DEFINE is OFF. You can find more on this use of the DEFINE environment variable in the “When to Disable Substitution Variables” sidebar later in this appendix.

Substitution variables are placeholder variables in SQL statements or session-level variables in script files. They are placeholder variables when you precede them with one ampersand (&) and are session-level variables when you precede them with two ampersands. As placeholders, they are discarded after a single use. Including two ampersands (&&) makes the assigned value of a substitution variable reusable. You can set a session-level variable either with the DEFINE command, as shown previously with the _EDITOR variable, or by using a double ampersand (&&), as in the following:

SELECT '&&BART' FROM dual;

With two ampersands, the query prompts the user for a value for the BART session-level variable and sets the value as a session-level variable. A single ampersand would simply prompt, use it, and discard it. Assuming you enter “Cartoon Character” as the response to the preceding query, you see the value by querying it with a single or double ampersand:

SELECT '&BART' AS "Session Variable" FROM dual;

This displays the following:

SESSION Variable
-----------------
Cartoon Character

Or you can use the DEFINE command like this:

DEFINE BART

This displays the following:

DEFINE BART            = "Cartoon Character" (CHAR)

The scope of the session variable lasts throughout the connection unless you undefine it with the following command:

UNDEFINE BART

Although you can define substitution variables, you can use them only by preceding their name with an ampersand. That’s because a single ampersand also lets you read the contents of substitution variables when they’re set as session-level variables. Several user variables are reserved for use by Oracle Database. These user variables can contain letters, underscores, or numbers in any order. When reserved for use by Oracle, these variables all start with an underscore, as is the case with the _EDITOR variable. Any reference to these variables is case-insensitive.

SQL*Plus checks the contents of the _EDITOR user variable when you type the EDIT command, often abbreviated as ED. The EDIT command launches the executable stored in the _EDITOR user variable. The Windows version of Oracle Database comes preconfigured with Notepad as the default editor. It finds the Notepad utility because it’s in a directory found in the operating system path variable. If you choose another editor, you need to ensure that the executable is in your default path environment.

The DEFINE command also lets you display the contents of all session-level variables. There is no all option for the DEFINE command, as there is for the SHOW command. You simply type DEFINE without any arguments to get a list of the default values:

DEFINE _DATE           = "09-AUG-18" (CHAR)
DEFINE _CONNECT_IDENTIFIER = "XE" (CHAR)
DEFINE _USER           = "STUDENT" (CHAR)
DEFINE _PRIVILEGE      = "" (CHAR)
DEFINE _SQLPLUS_RELEASE = "1102000200" (CHAR)
DEFINE _EDITOR         = "vim" (CHAR)
DEFINE _O_VERSION      = "Oracle Database 11g Express Edition Release 11.2.0.2.0 - 64bit Production" (CHAR)
DEFINE _O_RELEASE      = "1102000200" (CHAR)

The preceding user variables are set by Oracle during a /nolog connection. When you connect as a container or pluggable user, the DEFINE command displays a different result. Shown next is the example after having connected as the student (a pluggable database user):

DEFINE _DATE           = "09-AUG-18" (CHAR)
DEFINE _CONNECT_IDENTIFIER = "" (CHAR)
DEFINE _USER           = "" (CHAR)
DEFINE _PRIVILEGE      = "" (CHAR)
DEFINE _SQLPLUS_RELEASE = "1102000200" (CHAR)
DEFINE _EDITOR         = "vim" (CHAR)

The last two lines are displayed only when you’re connected as a user to the Oracle Database 12c database. As previously explained, you can define the contents of other substitution variables.

Although substitution variables have many uses, their primary purpose is to support the SQL*Plus environment. For example, you can use them to reset the SQL> prompt. You can reset the default SQL*Plus prompt by using two predefined session-level variables, like this:

SET sqlprompt "'SQL:'_user at _connect_identifier>"

This would change the default prompt to look like this when the _user name is system and the _connect_identifier is orcl:

SQL: SYSTEM AT orcl>

This type of prompt takes more space, but it shows you your current user and schema at a glance. It’s a handy prompt to help you avoid making changes in the wrong schema or instance, which occurs too often in daily practice.

Using Interactive Help in the SQL*Plus Environment SQL*Plus also provides an interactive help console that contains an index of help commands. You can find the index of commands by typing the following in SQL*Plus:

SQL> help INDEX

It displays the following:

Enter Help [topic] FOR help.
 
 @             COPY         PAUSE                    SHUTDOWN
 @@            DEFINE       PRINT                    SPOOL
 /             DEL          PROMPT                   SQLPLUS
 ACCEPT        DESCRIBE     QUIT                     START
 APPEND        DISCONNECT   RECOVER                  STARTUP
 ARCHIVE LOG   EDIT         REMARK                   STORE
 ATTRIBUTE     EXECUTE      REPFOOTER                TIMING
 BREAK         EXIT         REPHEADER                TTITLE
 BTITLE        GET          RESERVED WORDS (SQL)     UNDEFINE
 CHANGE        HELP         RESERVED WORDS (PL/SQL)  VARIABLE
 CLEAR         HOST         RUN                      WHENEVER OSERROR
 COLUMN        INPUT        SAVE                     WHENEVER SQLERROR
 COMPUTE       LIST         SET                      XQUERY
 CONNECT       PASSWORD     SHOW

You can discover more about the commands by typing help with one of the index keywords. The following demonstrates the STORE command, which lets you store the current buffer contents as a file:

SQL> help store

It displays the following:

STORE
 -----
 Saves attributes OF the CURRENT SQL*Plus environment IN a script.
 STORE {SET} file_name[.ext] [CRE[ATE] | REP[LACE] | APP[END]]

This is one way to save the contents of your current SQL statement into a file. You’ll see another, the SAVE command, shortly in this appendix. You might want to take a peek in the “Writing SQL*Plus Log Files” section later in this appendix if you’re experimenting with capturing the results of the HELP utility by spooling the information to a log file.

As discussed, the duration of any SQL*Plus environment variable is from the beginning to the end of any session. Define environment variables in the glogin.sql file when you want them to be available in all SQL*Plus sessions.

Shelling Out of the SQL*Plus Environment In cases where you don’t want to exit an interactive session of SQL*Plus, you can leave the session (known as shelling out) and run operating system commands. The HOST command lets you do that, like so:

SQL> HOST

Anything that you do inside this operating system session other than modify files is lost when you leave it and return to the SQL*Plus session. The most frequent things that most developers do in a shelled-out session are check the listing of files and rename files. Sometimes, developers make small modifications to files, exit the subshell session, and rerun the file from SQL*Plus.

You exit the operating system shell environment and return to SQL*Plus by typing EXIT.

An alternative to shelling out is to run a single operating system command from SQL*Plus. For example, you can type the following in Windows to see the contents of the directory from which you entered SQL*Plus:

SQL> HOST dir

Linux works with the HOST command, too. In Linux, you also have the option of a shorthand version of the HOST command—the exclamation mark (!). You use it like this:

SQL> ! ls -al

The difference between the ! and HOST commands is that you can’t use substitution variables with !.

Exiting SQL*Plus Environment You use QUIT or EXIT to exit a session in the SQL*Plus program. Either command ends a SQL*Plus session and releases any session variables.

The next sections show you how to write, save, edit, rerun, edit, abort, call, run, and pass parameters to SQL statements. Then you’ll learn how to call PL/SQL programs and write SQL*Plus log files.

Writing SQL Statements with SQL*Plus

A simple and direct way to demonstrate how to write SQL statements in SQL*Plus is to write a short query. Queries use the SELECT keyword to list columns from a table and use the FROM keyword to designate a table or set of tables. The following query selects a string literal value (“Hello World!”) from thin air with the help of the pseudo table dual. The dual pseudo table is a structure that lets you query one or more columns of data without accessing a table, view, or stored program. Oracle lets you select any type of column except a large object (LOB) from the dual table. The dual table returns only one row of data.

SELECT 'Hello World!' FROM dual;

Notice that Oracle requires single quotation marks as delimiters of string literal values. Any attempt to substitute double quotation marks raises an ORA-00904 error message, which means you’ve attempted to use an invalid identifier. For example, you’d generate the following error if you used double quotes around the string literal in the original statement:

SELECT "Hello World!" FROM dual
       *
ERROR AT line 1:
ORA-00904: "Hello World!": invalid identifier

If you’re coming from the MySQL world to work in Oracle databases, this may seem a bit provincial. MySQL works with either single or double quotes as string delimiters, but Oracle doesn’t. No quote delimiters are required for numeric literals.

SQL*Plus places a query or other SQL statement in a special buffer when you run it. Sometimes you may want to save these queries in files. The next section shows you how to do that.

Saving SQL Statements with SQL*Plus

Sometimes you’ll want to save a SQL statement in a file. That’s actually a perfect activity for the SAVE or STORE command (rather than spooling a log file). Using the SAVE or STORE command lets you save your current statement to a file. Capturing these ad hoc SQL statements is generally important—after all, SQL statements ultimately get bundled into rerunnable script files before they ever move into production systems.

Use the following syntax to save a statement as a runnable file:

SAVE some_new_file_name.SQL

If the file already exists, you can save the file with this syntax:

SAVE some_new_file_name.SQL REPLACE

Editing SQL Statements with SQL*Plus

You can edit your current SQL statements from within SQL*Plus by using EDIT. SQL*Plus preconfigures itself to launch Notepad when you type EDIT or the shorthand ED in any Windows installation of Oracle Database.

Although the EDIT command points to Notepad when you’re working in Windows, it isn’t configured by default in Linux or Unix. You have to set the editor for SQL*Plus when running on Linux or Unix. Refer to the “Working in the SQL*Plus Environment” section earlier in the appendix for details about setting up the editor.
Assuming you’ve configured the editor, you can edit the last SQL statement by typing EDIT like this (or you can use ED):

SQL> EDIT

The temporary contents of any SQL statement are stored in the afiedt.buf file by default. After you edit the file, you can save the modified statement into the buffer and rerun the statement. Alternatively, you can save the SQL statement as another file.

Rerunning SQL*Plus SQL Statements from the Buffer

After you edit a SQL statement, SQL*Plus automatically lists it for you and enables you to rerun it. Use a forward slash (/)to run the last SQL statement from the buffer. The semicolon at the end of your original SQL statement isn’t stored in the buffer; it’s replaced by a forward slash. If you add the semicolon back when you edited the SQL statement, you would see something like the following with the semicolon at the end of the last line of the statement:

SQL> EDIT
Wrote FILE afiedt.buf
  1* SELECT 'Hello World!' AS statement FROM dual;

A forward slash can’t rerun this from the buffer because the semicolon is an illegal character. You would get an error like this:

SQL> /
SELECT 'Hello World!' AS statement FROM dual;
*
ERROR AT line 1:
ORA-00911: invalid character

To fix this error, you should re-edit the buffer contents and remove the semicolon. The forward slash would then run the statement.

Some SQL statements have so many lines that they don’t fit on a single page in your terminal or shell session. In these cases, you can use the LIST command (or simply a lowercase l or uppercase L) to see only a portion of the current statement from the buffer. The LIST command by itself reads the buffer contents and displays them with line numbers at the SQL prompt.

If you’re working with a long PL/SQL block or SQL statement, you can inspect ranges of line numbers with the following syntax:

SQL> LIST 23 32

This will echo back to the console the inclusive set of lines from the buffer if they exist. Another command-line interface is used to edit line numbers. It’s very cumbersome and limited in its utility, so you should simply edit the SQL statement in a text editor.

Aborting Entry of SQL Statements in SQL*Plus

When you’re working at the command line, you can’t just point the mouse to the prior line and correct an error; instead, if your statement has an error, your must either abort the statement or run it and wait for it to fail. SQL*Plus lets you abort statements with errors.

To abort a SQL statement that you’re writing interactively, press ENTER, type a period (.) as the first character on the new line, and then press ENTER again. This aborts the statement but leaves it in the active buffer file in case you went to edit it.

After aborting a SQL statement, you can use the instructions in the previous “Editing SQL Statements with SQL*Plus” section to edit the statement with the ed utility—that is, if editing the statement is easier than retyping the whole thing.

Calling and Running SQL*Plus Script Files

Script (or batch) files are composed of related SQL statements and are the primary tool for implementing new software and patching old software. You use script files when you run installation or update programs in test, stage, and production environments. Quality and assurance departments want script files to ensure code integrity during predeployment testing. If errors are found in the script file, the script file is fixed by a new version. The final version of the script file is the one that a DBA runs when installing or upgrading an application or database system.

A script is rerunnable only if it can manage preexisting conditions in the production database without raising errors. You must eliminate all errors because administrators might not be able to judge which errors can be safely ignored. This means the script must perform conditional drops of tables and data migration processes.

Assuming you have a file named create_data.sql in a /Home/student/Data directory, you can run it with the @ (at) command in SQL*Plus. This script can be run from within SQL*Plus with either a relative filename or an absolute filename. A relative filename contains no path element because it assumes the present working path. An absolute filename requires a fully qualified path (also known as a canonical path) and filename.

The relative filename syntax depends on starting SQL*Plus from the directory where you have saved the script file. Here’s the syntax to run the create_data.sql file:

@create_data.SQL

Although the relative filename is easy to use, it limits you to starting SQL*Plus from a specific directory, which is not always possible. The absolute filename syntax works regardless of where you start SQL*Plus. Here’s an example for Linux:

@/home/student/Data/create_data.SQL

The @ command is also synonymous with the SQL*Plus START command. This means you can also run a script file based on its relative filename like this:

START create_data.SQL

The @ command reads the script file into the active buffer and then runs the script file. You use two @@ symbols when you call one script file from another script file that exists in the same directory. Combining the @@ symbols instructs SQL*Plus to look in the directory specified by the command that ran the calling script. This means that a call such as the following runs a subordinate script file from the same directory:

@@some_subordinate.SQL

If you need to run scripts delivered by Oracle and they reside in the ORACLE_HOME, you can use a handy shortcut: the question mark (?). The question mark maps to the ORACLE_HOME. This means you can run a library script from the \rdbms subdirectory of the ORACLE_HOME with this syntax in Linux:

?\rdbms\somescript.SQL

The shortcuts and relative path syntax are attractive during development but should be avoided in production. Using fully qualified paths from a fixed environment variable such as the $ORACLE_HOME in Linux is generally the best approach.

Passing Parameters to SQL*Plus Script Files

Understanding how to write and run static SQL statements or script files is important, but understanding how to write and run SQL statements or script files that can solve dynamic problems is even more important. To write dynamic scripts, you use substitution variables, which act like placeholders in SQL statements or scripts. As mentioned earlier, SQL*Plus supports two modes of processing: interactive mode and call mode.

Interactive Mode Parameter Passing When you call a script that contains substitution variables, SQL*Plus prompts for values that you want to assign to the substitution variables. The standard prompt is the name of the substitution variable, but you can alter that behavior by using the ACCEPT SQL*Plus command.

For example, assume that you want to write a script that looks for a table with a name that’s some partial string, but you know that the search string will change. A static SQL statement wouldn’t work, but a dynamic one would. The following dynamic script enables you to query the database catalog for any table based on only the starting part of the table name. The placeholder variable is designated using an ampersand (&) or two. Using a single ampersand instructs SQL*Plus to make the substitution at runtime and forget the value immediately after the substitution. Using two ampersands (&&) instructs SQL*Plus to make the substitution, store the variable as a session-level variable, and undefine the substitution variable.

SQL> SELECT   table_name
  2  ,        column_id
  3  ,        column_name
  4  FROM     user_tab_columns
  5 WHERE     TABLE LIKE UPPER('&input')||'%';

The UPPER function on line 5 promotes the input to uppercase letters because Oracle stores all metadata in uppercase and performs case-sensitive comparisons of strings by default. The query prompts as follows when run:

Enter VALUE FOR input: it

When you press ENTER, it shows the substitution of the value for the placeholder, like so:

old   5: WHERE table_name LIKE UPPER('&input')||'%'
NEW   5: WHERE    table_name LIKE UPPER('it')||'%'

At least this is the default behavior. The behavior depends on the value of the SQL*Plus VERIFY environment variable, which is set to ON by default. You can suppress that behavior by setting the value of VERIFY to OFF:

SET VERIFY OFF

You can also configure the default prompt by using SQL*Plus formatting commands, like so:

ACCEPT input CHAR PROMPT 'Enter the beginning part of the table name:'

This syntax acts like a double ampersand assignment and places the input substitution in memory as a session-level variable.

You can also format output through SQL*Plus. The COL[UMN] command qualifies the column name, the FORMAT command sets formatting to either numeric or alphanumeric string formatting, and the HEADING command lets you replace the column name with a reporting header. The following is an example of formatting for the preceding query:

SQL> COLUMN table_name   FORMAT A20   HEADING "Table Name"
SQL> COLUMN column_id    FORMAT 9990  HEADING "Column|ID"
SQL> COLUMN column_name  FORMAT A20   HEADING "Column Name"

The table_name column and column_name column now display the first 20 characters before wrapping to the next line because they are set to an alphanumeric size of 20 characters. The column_id column now displays the first four numeric values and would display a 0 when the column_id value is less than 1. Actually, this only illustrates the possibility of printing at least a 0 because a surrogate key value can’t have a value less than 1. The column headers for the table_name and column_name columns print in title case with an intervening whitespace, while the column_id column prints “Column” on one line and “ID” on the next.

Batch Mode Parameter Passing Batch mode operations typically involve a script file that contains more than a single SQL statement. The following example uses a file that contains a single SQL statement because it successfully shows the concept and conserves space.

The trick to batch submission is the -s option flag, or the silent option. Script files that run from the command line with this option flag are batch programs (those using the SQL*Plus call mode). They suppress a console session from being launched and run much like statements submitted through the JDBC API or ODBC API. Batch programs must include a QUIT or EXIT statement at the end of the file or they will hang in SQL*Plus. This technique lets you create a file that can run from an operating system script file, also commonly known as a shell script.

The following sample.sql file shows how you would pass a parameter to a dynamic SQL statement embedded in a script file:

-- Disable echoing substitution.
SET VERIFY OFF
 
-- Open log file.
SPOOL demo.txt
 
-- Query data based on an externally set parameter.
SELECT   table_name
, column_id
,        column_name
FROM     user_tab_columns
WHERE    table_name LIKE UPPER('&1')||'%';
 
-- Close log file.
SPOOL OFF
 
-- End session connection.
QUIT;

You would call the program from a batch file in Windows or a shell script in Linux. The syntax would include the user name and password, which presents a security risk. Provided you’ve secured your local server and you routinely purge your command history, you would call a sample.sql script from the present working directory like this:

sqlplus -s student/student @sample.SQL

You can also pass the user name and password as connection parameters, which is illustrated in the following sample:

SET VERIFY OFF
SPOOL demo.txt
CONNECT &1/&2
SELECT USER FROM dual;
SPOOL OFF
QUIT;

The script depends on the /nolog option to start SQL*Plus without connecting to a schema.

You would call it like this, providing the user name and password:

sqlplus -s /nolog @create_data.sql student student

As mentioned, there are risks to disclosing user names and passwords, because the information from the command line can be hacked from user history logs. Therefore, you should use anonymous login or operating system user validation when you want to run scripts like these.

Calling PL/SQL Programs

PL/SQL provides capabilities that don’t exist in SQL that are required by some database-centric applications. PL/SQL programs are stored programs that run inside a separate engine from the SQL statement engine. Their principal role is to group SQL statements and procedural logic to support transaction scopes across multiple SQL statements.

PL/SQL supports two types of stored programs: anonymous blocks and named blocks. Anonymous blocks are stored as trigger bodies and named blocks can be either stand-alone functions or procedures. PL/SQL also supports packages, which are groups of related functions and procedures. Packages support function and procedure overloading and provide many of the key utilities for Oracle databases. Oracle also supports object types and object bodies with the PL/SQL language. Object types support MEMBER and STATIC functions and procedures.

Oracle Database 12c PL/SQL Programming
Functions and procedures support pass-by-value and pass-by-reference methods available in other procedural programming languages. Functions return a value when they’re placed as right operands in an assignment and as calling parameters to other functions or procedures. Procedures don’t return a value or reference as a right operand and can’t be used as calling parameters to other functions or procedures.

Sometimes you’ll want to output diagnostic information to your console or formatted output from small PL/SQL programs to log files. This is easy to do in Oracle Database because PL/SQL supports anonymous block program units.
Before you can receive output from a PL/SQL block, you must open the buffer that separates the SQL*Plus environment from the PL/SQL engine. You do so with the following SQL*Plus command:

SET SERVEROUTPUT ON SIZE UNLIMITED

You enable the buffer stream for display to the console by changing the status of the SERVEROUTPUT environment variable to ON. Although you can set the SIZE parameter to any value, the legacy parameter limit of 1 million bytes no longer exists. That limit made sense in earlier releases because of physical machine limits governing console speed and network bandwidth. Today, there’s really no reason to constrain the output size, and you should always use UNLIMITED when you open the buffer.

You now know how to call the various types of PL/SQL programs. Whether the programs are yours or built-ins provided by Oracle, much of the logic that supports features of Oracle databases rely on stored programs.

Executing an Anonymous Block Program The following example demonstrates a traditional “Hello World!” program in an anonymous PL/SQL block. It uses a specialized stored program known as a package. Packages contain data types, shared variables, and cursors, functions, and procedures. You use the package name, a dot (the component selector), and a function or procedure name when you call package components.
You print “Hello World!” with the following anonymous block program unit:

SQL> BEGIN
  2    DBMS_OUTPUT.PUT_LINE('Hello World!');
  3  END;
  4  /

PL/SQL is a strongly typed language that uses declarative blocks rather than the curly braces you may know best from C, C#, C++, Java, Perl, or PHP. The execution block starts with the BEGIN keyword and ends with an EXCEPTION or END keyword. Since the preceding sample program doesn’t employ an exception block, the END keyword ends the program. All statements and blocks in PL/SQL end with a semicolon. The forward slash on line 4 executes the anonymous block program because the last semicolon ends the execution block. The program prints “Hello World!” to the console, provided you opened the buffer by enabling the SQL*Plus SERVEROUTPUT environment variable.

Anonymous block programs are very useful when you need one-time procedural processing and plan to execute it in the scope of a single batch or script file. Displaying results from the internals of the PL/SQL block is straightforward, as discussed earlier in this section: enable the SERVEROUTPUT environment variable.

Setting a Session Variable Inside PL/SQL Oracle databases also support session variables, which are not the same as session-level substitution variables. Session variables act like global variables in the scope and duration of your connection, as do session-level substitution variables, but the former differ from substitution variables in two ways. Substitution variables are limited to a string data type, while session variables may have any of the following data types: BINARY_DOUBLE, BINARY_FLOAT, CHAR, CLOB, NCHAR, NCLOB, NUMBER, NVARCHAR2, REFCURSOR, or VARCHAR2. Session variables, more commonly referred to as bind variables, can’t be assigned a value in SQL*Plus or SQL scope. You must assign values to session variables in an anonymous PL/SQL block.

Session variables, like session-level substitution variables, are very useful because you can share them across SQL statements. You must define session variables with the VARIABLE keyword, which gives them a name and data type but not a value. As an example, you can define a bind variable as a 20-character-length string like so:

VARIABLE whom VARCHAR2(20)

You can assign a session variable with an anonymous PL/SQL block or a CALL to a stored function. Inside the anonymous block, you reference the variable with a colon preceding the variable name. The colon points to a session-level scope that is external to its local block scope:

BEGIN
  :whom := 'Sam';
END;
/

After assigning a value to the session variable, you can query it in a SQL statement or reuse it in another PL/SQL anonymous block program. The following query from the dual pseudo table concatenates string literals before and after the session variable:

SELECT 'Play it again, ' || :whom || '!' FROM dual;

The colon appears in SQL statements, too. Both the anonymous block and SQL statement actually run in execution scopes that are equivalent to other subshells in operating system shell scripting. The query prints the following:

Play it again, Sam!

The dual pseudo table is limited to a single row but can return one to many columns. You can actually display 999 columns, which is the same as the number of possible columns for a table in the Oracle Database.

Executing a Named Block Program Stored functions and procedures are known as named blocks, whether they’re stand-alone programs or part of a package. You can call a named function into a session variable or return the value in a query. Procedures are different because you execute them in the scope of a session or block and they have no return value (procedures are like functions that return a void data type).

The following is a “Hello World!” function that takes no parameters:

SQL> CREATE OR REPLACE FUNCTION hello_function RETURN VARCHAR2 IS
  2    BEGIN
  3      RETURN 'Hello World!';
  4    END hello_function;
  5  /

A query of the function uses the dual pseudo table, like so:

SELECT hello_function FROM dual;

When you call in a query a function that doesn’t have defined parameters, you can omit the parentheses traditionally associated with function calls with no arguments. However, if you use the SQL*Plus CALL syntax, you must provide the opening and closing parentheses or you raise an ORA-06576 error message. Assuming that the return value of the function will be assigned to a bind variable of output, you need to define the session variable before calling the function value into the output variable.

The following defines a session variable as a 12-character, variable-length string:

VARIABLE my_output VARCHAR2(12)

The following statement calls the function and puts the result in the session variable :my_output. Preceding the session variable with a colon is required to make it accessible from SQL statements or anonymous PL/SQL blocks.

CALL hello_world AS INTO :my_output;

The lack of parentheses causes this statement to fail and raises an ORA-06576 error message.

Adding the parentheses to the CALL statement makes it work:

CALL hello_world() AS INTO :my_output;

Procedures work differently and are run by the EXECUTE command. The following defines a stored procedure that echoes out the string "Hello World!" Procedures are easier to work with from SQL*Plus because you don’t need to define session variables to capture output. All you do is enable the SQL*Plus SERVEROUTPUT environment variable.

SQL> CREATE OR REPLACE PROCEDURE hello_procedure IS
  2    BEGIN
  3      dbms_output.put_line('Hello World!');
  4    END hello_procedure;
  5  /

You can execute the procedure successfully like so:

EXECUTE hello_procedure;

Or you can execute the procedure with parentheses, like so:

EXECUTE hello_procedure();

You should see "Hello World!" using either form. If it isn’t displayed, enable the SQL*Plus SERVEROUTPUT environment variable. Remember that nothing returns to the console without enabling the SERVEROUTPUT environment variable.

All the examples dealing with calls to PL/SQL named blocks use a pass-by-value method, which means that values enter the program units, are consumed, and other values are returned.

Writing SQL*Plus Log Files

When you’re testing the idea of how a query should work and want to capture one that did work, you can write it directly to a file. You can also capture all the activity of a long script by writing it to a log file. You can write log files in either of two ways: capture only the feedback messages, such as “four rows updated,” or capture the statement executed and then the feedback message. The output of the latter method are called verbose log files.

You can write verbose log files by leveraging the SQL*Plus ECHO environment variable in SQL*Plus. You enable it with this command:

SET ECHO ON

Enabling the ECHO command splits your SQL commands. It dispatches one to run against the server and echoes the other back to your console. This allows you to see statements in your log file before the feedback from their execution.
You open a log file with the following command:

SPOOL /home/student/Data/somefile.txt

This logs all output from the script to the file /home/student/Data/somefile.txt until the SPOOL OFF command runs in the session. The output file’s extension is not required but defaults to .lst when not provided explicitly. As an extension, .lst doesn’t map to a default application in Windows or Linux environments. It’s a convention to use some file extension that maps to an editor as a text file.

You can append to an existing file with the following syntax:

SPOOL /home/student/Data/somefile.txt APPEND

Both of the foregoing syntax examples use an absolute filename. You use a relative filename when you omit the qualified path, in which case the file is written to the directory where you launched sqlplus.

When using a relative path, you should know that it looks in the directory where you launched sqlplus. That directory is called the present working directory or, by some old csh (C Shell) folks, the current working directory.

You close a log file with the following command:

SPOOL OFF

No file exists until you close the buffer stream. Only one open buffer stream can exist in any session. This means you can write only to one log file at a time from a given session. Therefore, you should spool only in script files that aren’t called by other script files that might also spool to a log file. You shouldn’t attempt to log from the topmost script because that makes triaging errors among the programming units more complex.

A pragmatic approach to development requires that you log work performed. Failure to log your work can have impacts on the integrity of data and processes.