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(More customer reviews)Most of us have had to learn PL/SQL at some point in our Oracle careers, and I am sure many of you have become quite expert. On the other hand, some of you may be new to this world of PL/SQL and are looking for a basic text that will educate you in the use of this language.
The "Bible" for PL/SQL programming has long been the earlier editions of this book, and Steven Feuerstein has been considered the guru of PL/SQL programming for as many years as I can remember. Steven has completely revised his best-known work into a new, third edition. I thought that it was time to take a look at this new edition and see what it has to offer both groups. Here is what I found.
Steven now provides complete coverage of PL/SQL from Oracle RDBMS version 7.3.4 through Oracle9i Release 2. He has incorporated all the information from his book PL/SQL Guide to Oracle8i New Features into this book. He has added a new chapter on database triggers and included especially useful information on DDL triggers and database event triggers. He has added new content on the PL/SQL runtime architecture, creating and running PL/SQL programs, and calling Java methods from within PL/SQL. He has integrated all the new Oracle9i features throughout the text, instead of placing them in a separate chapter.
In order to make the book fit into 1,000 pages, some of the example code was removed and can be found on O'Reilly's Web site at www.oreilly.com/catalog/oraclep3 as a zipped file. About 300 files are available. Approximately 200 pages that were pruned from the second edition that still have some utility are also available there.
The book is organized much the same way as previous editions, with a few changes. There are 23 chapters divided into six parts:
Part I: Programming in PL/SQL. These three chapters orient you to PL/SQL, its history, utility, and basic programming constructs.
Part II: PL/SQL Program Structure. Conditional, sequential, iterative control structures, and exceptions are covered in these three chapters.
Part III: PL/SQL Program Data. Six chapters cover how to manipulate data within PL/SQL procedures and functions. Strings, numbers, datatypes, including the new Oracle9i datatypes, and records and collections are also discussed.
Part IV: SQL in PL/SQL. There are three chapters that cover transactions, data retrieval, and the use of dynamic SQL.
Part V: PL/SQL Application Construction. The four chapters in this part discuss procedures and functions, packages, triggers, and managing PL/SQL applications.
Part VI: Advanced PL/SQL Topics. There are four final chapters that cover the runtime architecture, object-orientation in PL/SQL, PL/SQL and Java, and external procedure calls.
Steven states in his preface that the three objectives of this book are to
1.take full advantage of the features of PL/SQL,
2.use PL/SQL to solve your problems, and
3.write efficient, maintainable code.
Each chapter has been crafted to address these three objectives. His writing style is clear, succinct, and reads like he is sitting next to you chatting about the new things he's learned. The book is absolutely full of code examples. Most of the examples are posed as practical programming problems. He carefully walks you through the lines of example code, clearly explaining the logic used for each step of the program, and points out version-based differences. Steve is also not afraid to express an opinion and will tell you exactly why he chooses a particular method for solving a problem. Notes explaining tips and traps proliferate the book.
So, what do I think about this new edition? His book has the most comprehensive coverage of PL/SQL that I have ever seen. The code examples achieve a level of sophistication that is truly elegant. For a PL/SQL beginner, this book can be the source of all PL/SQL wisdom. Even if you have been programming with PL/SQL for a time, I think you will find the information on Oracle9i new features useful and will find many nuggets of information that can be used immediately to improve your code.
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Nearly a quarter-million PL/SQL programmers--novices and experienced developers alike--have found the first and second editions of Oracle PL/SQL Programming to be indispensable references to this powerful language. Packed with examples and recommendations, this book has helped everyone, from Oracle Forms developers to database administrators, make the most of PL/SQL. This new edition is a comprehensive update of the original book, covering all versions of PL/SQL through Oracle9i Release 2. It adds much-requested new chapters on how to create and run PL/SQL programs, call Java methods from within PL/SQL, and define and use database triggers. An extensive new chapter--designed especially for experienced PL/SQL developers--describes PL/SQL's runtime architecture and how to use knowledge of Oracle internals to get the best performance from PL/SQL.
The book contains information about the latest Oracle9i PL/SQL features, including:
Record-based DML: You can now use records in INSERT and DELETE statements.
Table functions: These are functions that return a result set (in the form of a PL/SQL collection). Such functions existed in Oracle8i but they are now much expanded.
New and improved datatypes: Oracle now offers dramatically improved support for timestamps, time zone management, and interval calculations. In addition, the XMLType datatype has now been implemented.
Inheritance for object types: You can now define a hierarchy of object types (which were first introduced in Oracle8).
Enhancements to PL/SQL collections.PL/SQL now supports multiple-level collections (nesting collections within collections), as well as associative arrays (previously called index-by tables), which allow you to index by PLS_INTEGER and VARCHAR2.
Native compilation of PL/SQL code: PL/SQL source code can now optionally be compiled into native object code that is linked into Oracle.
The book is divided into six parts:
Part I, Programming in PL/SQL
Part II, PL/SQL Program Structure
Part III, PL/SQL Program Data
Part IV, SQL in PL/SQL
Part V, PL/SQL Application Construction
Part VI, Advanced PL/SQL Topics
Even if you've been a PL/SQL developer for years, you'll find an enormous amount of new and revised information in this third edition and on its companion web site. If you're new to PL/SQL, you'll find Oracle PL/SQL Programming an invaluable companion on the road to mastery.
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