Introduction To Oracle 9i/10g PL/SQL Programming Course

The Oracle 10g release has greatly enhanced the features and functionality of PL/SQL. Students will learn the fundamentals of the PL/SQL programming language. Students will write stored procedures, functions, packages, and triggers, and implement complex business rules in Oracle. Students will learn programming, management, and security issues of working with PL/SQL program units. Programming topics will include the built-in packages that come with Oracle, the creation of triggers, and stored procedure features.

This course is targetted at application developers and database administrators.

A solid understanding of SQL and 3GL programming is required. It is recommended the student understand Oracle 10g SQL features.

Topics covered on the 3 day Introduction To Oracle 9i/10g PL/SQL Programming course

Triggers

• Beyond Declarative Integrity
• Triggers
• Types of Triggers
• Row-Level Triggers
• Cascading Triggers and Mutating Tables
• Generating an Error
• Triggers on Views
• System Triggers
• Maintaining Triggers

PL/SQL Variables and Datatypes

• Declaring Variables
• Datatypes
• Subtypes
• Character Data
• Dates and Timestamps
• Date Intervals
• Anchored Types
• Assignment and Conversions
• Selecting into a Variable

PL/SQL Syntax and Logic

• PL/SQL Blocks and Programs
• Conditional Statements – IF/THEN
• Conditional Statements – CASE
• Comments and Labels
• Loops
• WHILE and FOR Loops

Stored Procedures and Functions

• Stored Subprograms
• Procedures and Functions
• Creating a Stored Procedure
• Calling a Stored Procedure
• Passing Parameters and Default Arguments
• Parameter Modes
• Creating a Stored Function
• Calling a Stored Function
• Stored Functions and SQL
• Local Procedures and Functions

Exception Handling

• SQLCODE and SQLERRM
• Exception Handlers
• Nesting Blocks
• Scope and Name Resolution
• User-Defined Exceptions
• Compile-Time Warnings

Records and Collections

• Record Variables
• Using the %ROWTYPE Attribute
• VARRAY and Nested TABLE Collections
• Using Nested TABLEs
• Using VARRAYs
• Associative Array Collections
• Collection Methods
• Iterating Through Collections
• FORALL Statement
• BULK COLLECT Clause

Cursors

• Multi-Row Queries
• Declaring and Opening Cursors
• Fetching Rows
• Closing Cursors
• The Cursor FOR Loop
• FOR UPDATE Cursors
• Cursor Parameters
• The Implicit (SQL) Cursor

Using Packages

• Packages
• Oracle-Supplied Packages
• The DBMS_OUTPUT Package
• The DBMS_UTILITY Package
• The UTL_FILE Package
• The DBMS_METADATA Package
• XML Packages
• Networking Packages
• Other Supplied Packages

Creating Packages

• Structure of a Package
• The Package Interface and Implementation
• Package Variables
• Overloading Package Functions and Procedures
• Named Parameter Notation
• REF CURSOR Variables

Working with LOBs

• Large Object Types
• Oracle Directories
• LOB Locators
• Internal LOBs
• External LOBs
• Temporary LOBs
• The DBMS_LOB Package

Maintaining PL/SQL Code

• Privileges for Stored Programs
• PL/SQL Stored Program Compilation
• The PL/SQL Execution Environment
• Dependencies and Validation
• Maintaining Stored Programs

Appendix A - Dynamic SQL

• Generating SQL at Runtime
• Native Dynamic SQL vs. DBMS_SQL Package
• The EXECUTE IMMEDIATE Statement
• Using Bind Variables
• Multi-row Dynamic Queries
• Bulk Operations with Dynamic SQL
• Using DBMS_SQL
• DBMS_SQL Subprograms