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PL/SQL - Quick Guide

PL/SQL - Overview
The PL/SQL programming language was developed by Oracle Corporation in the late
1980s as procedural extension language for SQL and the Oracle relational database.
Following are certain notable facts about PL/SQL −

PL/SQL is a completely portable, high-performance transaction-processing

language.

PL/SQL provides a built-in, interpreted and OS independent programming

environment.

PL/SQL can also directly be called from the command-line SQL*Plus interface.

Direct call can also be made from external programming language calls to
database.

PL/SQL's general syntax is based on that of ADA and Pascal programming

language.
Apart from Oracle, PL/SQL is available in TimesTen in-memory database and
IBM DB2.

Features of PL/SQL
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PL/SQL has the following features −
-

PL/SQL is tightly integrated with SQL.

It offers extensive error checking.

It offers numerous data types.

It offers a variety of programming structures.

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It supports structured programming through functions and procedures.

It supports object-oriented programming.

It supports the development of web applications and server pages.

Advantages of PL/SQL
PL/SQL has the following advantages −

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SQL is the standard database language and PL/SQL is strongly integrated with
SQL. PL/SQL supports both static and dynamic SQL. Static SQL supports DML
operations and transaction control from PL/SQL block. In Dynamic SQL, SQL
allows embedding DDL statements in PL/SQL blocks.

PL/SQL allows sending an entire block of statements to the database at one time.
This reduces network traffic and provides high performance for the applications.
PL/SQL gives high productivity to programmers as it can query, transform, and
update data in a database.

PL/SQL saves time on design and debugging by strong features, such as

exception handling, encapsulation, data hiding, and object-oriented data types.
Applications written in PL/SQL are fully portable.

PL/SQL provides high security level.

PL/SQL provides access to predefined SQL packages.

PL/SQL provides support for Object-Oriented Programming.

PL/SQL provides support for developing Web Applications and Server Pages.

PL/SQL - Environment Setup

In this chapter, we will discuss the Environment Setup of PL/SQL. PL/SQL is not a
standalone programming language; it is a tool within the Oracle programming
environment. SQL* Plus is an interactive tool that allows you to type SQL and PL/SQL
statements at the command prompt. These commands are then sent to the database for
processing. Once the statements are processed, the results are sent back and displayed
on screen.

To run PL/SQL programs, you should have the Oracle RDBMS Server installed in your
machine. This will take care of the execution of the SQL commands. The most recent
version of Oracle RDBMS is 11g. You can download a trial version of Oracle 11g from the
following link −

Download Oracle 11g Express Edition

You will have to download either the 32-bit or the 64-bit version of the installation as per
your operating system. Usually there are two files. We have downloaded the 64-bit
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version. You will also use similar steps on your operating system, does not matter if it is
-
Linux or Solaris.

win64_11gR2_database_1of2.zip

win64_11gR2_database_2of2.zip

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After downloading the above two files, you will need to unzip them in a single directory
database and under that you will find the following sub-directories −

Step 1

Let us now launch the Oracle Database Installer using the setup file. Following is the first
screen. You can provide your email ID and check the checkbox as shown in the following
screenshot. Click the Next button.

Step 2
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You will be directed to the following screen; uncheck the checkbox and click the
Continue button to proceed. -

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Step 3

Just select the first option Create and Configure Database using the radio button and
click the Next button to proceed.

Step 4
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We assume you are installing Oracle for the basic purpose of learning and that you are
-
installing it on your PC or Laptop. Thus, select the Desktop Class option and click the
Next button to proceed.

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Step 5

Provide a location, where you will install the Oracle Server. Just modify the Oracle Base
and the other locations will set automatically. You will also have to provide a password;
this will be used by the system DBA. Once you provide the required information, click the
Next button to proceed.

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Step 6
Again, click the Next button to proceed.

Step 7

Click the Finish button to proceed; this will start the actual server installation.

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Step 8

This will take a few moments, until Oracle starts performing the required configuration.

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Step 9

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Here, Oracle installation will copy the required configuration files. This should take a
moment −

Step 10
Once the database files are copied, you will have the following dialogue box. Just click
the OK button and come out.

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Step 11
Upon installation, you will have the following final window.

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Final Step
It is now time to verify your installation. At the command prompt, use the following
command if you are using Windows −

sqlplus "/ as sysdba"

You should have the SQL prompt where you will write your PL/SQL commands and
scripts −

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Text Editor
Running large programs from the command prompt may land you in inadvertently losing
some of the work. It is always recommended to use the command files. To use the
command files −

Type your code in a text editor, like Notepad, Notepad+, or EditPlus, etc.

Save the file with the .sql extension in the home directory.

Launch the SQL*Plus command prompt from the directory where you created
your PL/SQL file.

Type @file_name at the SQL*Plus command prompt to execute your program.

If you are not using a file to execute the PL/SQL scripts, then simply copy your PL/SQL
code and right-click on the black window that displays the SQL prompt; use the paste
option to paste the complete code at the command prompt. Finally, just press Enter to
execute the code, if it is not already executed.

PL/SQL - Basic Syntax

In this chapter, we will discuss the Basic Syntax of PL/SQL which is a block-structured
language; this means that the PL/SQL programs are divided and written in logical blocks
of code. Each block consists of three sub-parts −

[Link] Sections & Description

Declarations
This section starts with the keyword DECLARE. It is an optional section and
1
defines all variables, cursors, subprograms, and other elements to be used in
the program.

Executable Commands
This section is enclosed between the keywords BEGIN and END and it is a
2 mandatory section. It consists of the executable PL/SQL statements of the
program. It should have at least one executable line of code, which may be
just a NULL command to indicate that nothing should be executed.
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Exception Handling -
3 This section starts with the keyword EXCEPTION. This optional section
contains exception(s) that handle errors in the program.

Every PL/SQL statement ends with a semicolon (;). PL/SQL blocks can be nested within
other PL/SQL blocks using BEGIN and END. Following is the basic structure of a PL/SQL
block −

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DECLARE
<declarations section>
BEGIN
<executable command(s)>
EXCEPTION
<exception handling>
END;

The 'Hello World' Example

DECLARE
message varchar2(20):= 'Hello, World!';
BEGIN
dbms_output.put_line(message);
END;
/

The end; line signals the end of the PL/SQL block. To run the code from the SQL
command line, you may need to type / at the beginning of the first blank line after the
last line of the code. When the above code is executed at the SQL prompt, it produces
the following result −

Hello World

PL/SQL procedure successfully completed.

The PL/SQL Identifiers

PL/SQL identifiers are constants, variables, exceptions, procedures, cursors, and
reserved words. The identifiers consist of a letter optionally followed by more letters,
numerals, dollar signs, underscores, and number signs and should not exceed 30
characters.

By default, Advertisement
identifiers are not case-sensitive. So you can use integer or INTEGER to
-
represent a numeric value. You cannot use a reserved keyword as an identifier.

The PL/SQL Delimiters

A delimiter is a symbol with a special meaning. Following is the list of delimiters in
PL/SQL −

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Delimiter Description

+, -, *, / Addition, subtraction/negation, multiplication, division

% Attribute indicator

' Character string delimiter

. Component selector

(,) Expression or list delimiter

: Host variable indicator

, Item separator

" Quoted identifier delimiter

= Relational operator

@ Remote access indicator

; Statement terminator

:= Assignment operator

=> Association operator

|| Concatenation operator

** Exponentiation operator

<<, >> Label delimiter (begin and end)

/*, */ Multi-line comment delimiter (begin and end)

-- Single-line comment indicator

.. Range operator

<, >, <=, >= Relational operators

<>, '=, Advertisement

~=, ^= Different versions of NOT EQUAL
-

The PL/SQL Comments

Program comments are explanatory statements that can be included in the PL/SQL code
that you write and helps anyone reading its source code. All programming languages
allow some form of comments.

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The PL/SQL supports single-line and multi-line comments. All characters available inside
any comment are ignored by the PL/SQL compiler. The PL/SQL single-line comments
start with the delimiter -- (double hyphen) and multi-line comments are enclosed by /*
and */.

DECLARE
-- variable declaration
message varchar2(20):= 'Hello, World!';
BEGIN
/*
* PL/SQL executable statement(s)
*/
dbms_output.put_line(message);
END;
/

When the above code is executed at the SQL prompt, it produces the following result −

Hello World

PL/SQL procedure successfully completed.

PL/SQL Program Units

A PL/SQL unit is any one of the following −

PL/SQL block

Function

Package

Package body

Procedure

Trigger

Type Advertisement
-
Type body

Each of these units will be discussed in the following chapters.

PL/SQL - Data Types

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In this chapter, we will discuss the Data Types in PL/SQL. The PL/SQL variables,
constants and parameters must have a valid data type, which specifies a storage format,
constraints, and a valid range of values. We will focus on the SCALAR and the LOB data
types in this chapter. The other two data types will be covered in other chapters.

[Link] Category & Description

Scalar
1 Single values with no internal components, such as a NUMBER, DATE, or
BOOLEAN.

Large Object (LOB)

2 Pointers to large objects that are stored separately from other data items, such
as text, graphic images, video clips, and sound waveforms.

Composite
3 Data items that have internal components that can be accessed individually.
For example, collections and records.

Reference
4
Pointers to other data items.

PL/SQL Scalar Data Types and Subtypes

PL/SQL Scalar Data Types and Subtypes come under the following categories −

[Link] Date Type & Description

Numeric
1
Numeric values on which arithmetic operations are performed.

Character
2
Alphanumeric values that represent single characters or strings of characters.

Boolean
3
Logical values on which logical operations are performed.

Datetime
4
Dates and times.
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-
PL/SQL provides subtypes of data types. For example, the data type NUMBER has a
subtype called INTEGER. You can use the subtypes in your PL/SQL program to make the
data types compatible with data types in other programs while embedding the PL/SQL
code in another program, such as a Java program.

PL/SQL Numeric Data Types and Subtypes

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Following table lists out the PL/SQL pre-defined numeric data types and their sub-types
−

[Link] Data Type & Description

PLS_INTEGER
1 Signed integer in range -2,147,483,648 through 2,147,483,647, represented in
32 bits

BINARY_INTEGER
2 Signed integer in range -2,147,483,648 through 2,147,483,647, represented in
32 bits

BINARY_FLOAT
3
Single-precision IEEE 754-format floating-point number

BINARY_DOUBLE
4
Double-precision IEEE 754-format floating-point number

NUMBER(prec, scale)
5 Fixed-point or floating-point number with absolute value in range 1E-130 to
(but not including) 1.0E126. A NUMBER variable can also represent 0

DEC(prec, scale)
6
ANSI specific fixed-point type with maximum precision of 38 decimal digits

DECIMAL(prec, scale)
7
IBM specific fixed-point type with maximum precision of 38 decimal digits

NUMERIC(pre, secale)
8
Floating type with maximum precision of 38 decimal digits

DOUBLE PRECISION
9 ANSI specific floating-point type with maximum precision of 126 binary digits
(approximately 38 decimal digits)

FLOAT
10 ANSI and IBM specific floating-point type with maximum precision of 126
binary digits (approximately 38 decimal digits)

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INT
11
ANSI specific integer type -with maximum precision of 38 decimal digits

INTEGER
12 ANSI and IBM specific integer type with maximum precision of 38 decimal
digits

13 SMALLINT

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ANSI and IBM specific integer type with maximum precision of 38 decimal
digits

REAL
14 Floating-point type with maximum precision of 63 binary digits (approximately
18 decimal digits)

Following is a valid declaration −

DECLARE
num1 INTEGER;
num2 REAL;
num3 DOUBLE PRECISION;
BEGIN
null;
END;
/

When the above code is compiled and executed, it produces the following result −

PL/SQL procedure successfully completed

PL/SQL Character Data Types and Subtypes

Following is the detail of PL/SQL pre-defined character data types and their sub-types −

[Link] Data Type & Description

CHAR
1
Fixed-length character string with maximum size of 32,767 bytes

VARCHAR2
2
Variable-length character string with maximum size of 32,767 bytes

RAW
3 Variable-length
Advertisementbinary or byte string with maximum size of 32,767 bytes, not
interpreted by PL/SQL -

NCHAR
4
Fixed-length national character string with maximum size of 32,767 bytes

NVARCHAR2
5
Variable-length national character string with maximum size of 32,767 bytes

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LONG
6
Variable-length character string with maximum size of 32,760 bytes

LONG RAW
7 Variable-length binary or byte string with maximum size of 32,760 bytes, not
interpreted by PL/SQL

ROWID
8
Physical row identifier, the address of a row in an ordinary table

UROWID
9
Universal row identifier (physical, logical, or foreign row identifier)

PL/SQL Boolean Data Types

The BOOLEAN data type stores logical values that are used in logical operations. The
logical values are the Boolean values TRUE and FALSE and the value NULL.

However, SQL has no data type equivalent to BOOLEAN. Therefore, Boolean values
cannot be used in −

SQL statements

Built-in SQL functions (such as TO_CHAR)

PL/SQL functions invoked from SQL statements

PL/SQL Datetime and Interval Types

The DATE datatype is used to store fixed-length datetimes, which include the time of
day in seconds since midnight. Valid dates range from January 1, 4712 BC to December
31, 9999 AD.

The default date format is set by the Oracle initialization parameter NLS_DATE_FORMAT.
For example, the default might be 'DD-MON-YY', which includes a two-digit number for
the day of the month, an abbreviation of the month name, and the last two digits of the
year. For example, 01-OCT-12.

Each DATE Advertisement

includes the century, year, month, day, hour, minute, and second. The
following table shows the valid values
- for each field −

Valid Interval
Field Name Valid Datetime Values
Values

YEAR -4712 to 9999 (excluding year 0) Any nonzero integer

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MONTH 01 to 12 0 to 11

01 to 31 (limited by the values of

DAY MONTH and YEAR, according to the Any nonzero integer
rules of the calendar for the locale)

HOUR 00 to 23 0 to 23

MINUTE 00 to 59 0 to 59

0 to 59.9(n), where
00 to 59.9(n), where 9(n) is the 9(n) is the precision of
SECOND
precision of time fractional seconds interval fractional
seconds

-12 to 14 (range accommodates

TIMEZONE_HOUR Not applicable
daylight savings time changes)

TIMEZONE_MINUTE 00 to 59 Not applicable

Found in the dynamic performance

TIMEZONE_REGION Not applicable
view V$TIMEZONE_NAMES

Found in the dynamic performance

TIMEZONE_ABBR Not applicable
view V$TIMEZONE_NAMES

PL/SQL Large Object (LOB) Data Types

Large Object (LOB) data types refer to large data items such as text, graphic images,
video clips, and sound waveforms. LOB data types allow efficient, random, piecewise
access to this data. Following are the predefined PL/SQL LOB data types −

Data Type Description Size

Used to store large binary objects in

System-dependent. Cannot
BFILE operating system files outside the
exceed 4 gigabytes (GB).
database.

Used to store large binary objects in

BLOBAdvertisement 8 to 128 terabytes (TB)
the database.
-

Used to store large blocks of character

CLOB 8 to 128 TB
data in the database.

Used to store large blocks of NCHAR

NCLOB 8 to 128 TB
data in the database.

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PL/SQL User-Defined Subtypes

A subtype is a subset of another data type, which is called its base type. A subtype has
the same valid operations as its base type, but only a subset of its valid values.

PL/SQL predefines several subtypes in package STANDARD. For example, PL/SQL

predefines the subtypes CHARACTER and INTEGER as follows −

SUBTYPE CHARACTER IS CHAR;

SUBTYPE INTEGER IS NUMBER(38,0);

You can define and use your own subtypes. The following program illustrates defining
and using a user-defined subtype −

DECLARE
SUBTYPE name IS char(20);
SUBTYPE message IS varchar2(100);
salutation name;
greetings message;
BEGIN
salutation := 'Reader ';
greetings := 'Welcome to the World of PL/SQL';
dbms_output.put_line('Hello ' || salutation || greetings);
END;
/

When the above code is executed at the SQL prompt, it produces the following result −

Hello Reader Welcome to the World of PL/SQL

PL/SQL procedure successfully completed.

NULLs in PL/SQL
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PL/SQL NULL values represent missing-
or unknown data and they are not an integer, a
character, or any other specific data type. Note that NULL is not the same as an empty
data string or the null character value '\0'. A null can be assigned but it cannot be
equated with anything, including itself.

PL/SQL - Variables

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In this chapter, we will discuss Variables in Pl/SQL. A variable is nothing but a name
given to a storage area that our programs can manipulate. Each variable in PL/SQL has a
specific data type, which determines the size and the layout of the variable's memory;
the range of values that can be stored within that memory and the set of operations that
can be applied to the variable.

The name of a PL/SQL variable consists of a letter optionally followed by more letters,
numerals, dollar signs, underscores, and number signs and should not exceed 30
characters. By default, variable names are not case-sensitive. You cannot use a reserved
PL/SQL keyword as a variable name.

PL/SQL programming language allows to define various types of variables, such as date
time data types, records, collections, etc. which we will cover in subsequent chapters.
For this chapter, let us study only basic variable types.

Variable Declaration in PL/SQL

PL/SQL variables must be declared in the declaration section or in a package as a global
variable. When you declare a variable, PL/SQL allocates memory for the variable's value
and the storage location is identified by the variable name.

The syntax for declaring a variable is −

variable_name [CONSTANT] datatype [NOT NULL] [:= | DEFAULT initial_value]

Where, variable_name is a valid identifier in PL/SQL, datatype must be a valid PL/SQL

data type or any user defined data type which we already have discussed in the last
chapter. Some valid variable declarations along with their definition are shown below −

sales number(10, 2);

pi CONSTANT double precision := 3.1415;
name varchar2(25);
address varchar2(100);

When you provide a size, scale or precision limit with the data type, it is called a
constrained declaration. Constrained declarations require less memory than
unconstrained declarations. For example −
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-

sales number(10, 2);

name varchar2(25);
address varchar2(100);

Initializing Variables in PL/SQL

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Whenever you declare a variable, PL/SQL assigns it a default value of NULL. If you want
to initialize a variable with a value other than the NULL value, you can do so during the
declaration, using either of the following −

The DEFAULT keyword

The assignment operator

For example −

counter binary_integer := 0;
greetings varchar2(20) DEFAULT 'Have a Good Day';

You can also specify that a variable should not have a NULL value using the NOT NULL
constraint. If you use the NOT NULL constraint, you must explicitly assign an initial value
for that variable.

It is a good programming practice to initialize variables properly otherwise, sometimes

programs would produce unexpected results. Try the following example which makes use
of various types of variables −

DECLARE
a integer := 10;
b integer := 20;
c integer;
f real;
BEGIN
c := a + b;
dbms_output.put_line('Value of c: ' || c);
f := 70.0/3.0;
dbms_output.put_line('Value of f: ' || f);
END;
/

When the above code is executed, it produces the following result −

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-
Value of c: 30
Value of f: 23.333333333333333333

PL/SQL procedure successfully completed.

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Variable Scope in PL/SQL

PL/SQL allows the nesting of blocks, i.e., each program block may contain another inner
block. If a variable is declared within an inner block, it is not accessible to the outer
block. However, if a variable is declared and accessible to an outer block, it is also
accessible to all nested inner blocks. There are two types of variable scope −

Local variables − Variables declared in an inner block and not accessible to

outer blocks.

Global variables − Variables declared in the outermost block or a package.

Following example shows the usage of Local and Global variables in its simple form −

DECLARE
-- Global variables
num1 number := 95;
num2 number := 85;
BEGIN
dbms_output.put_line('Outer Variable num1: ' || num1);
dbms_output.put_line('Outer Variable num2: ' || num2);
DECLARE
-- Local variables
num1 number := 195;
num2 number := 185;
BEGIN
dbms_output.put_line('Inner Variable num1: ' || num1);
dbms_output.put_line('Inner Variable num2: ' || num2);
END;
END;
/

When the above code is executed, it produces the following result −

Outer Variable num1: 95

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Outer Variable num2: 85 -
Inner Variable num1: 195
Inner Variable num2: 185

PL/SQL procedure successfully completed.

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Assigning SQL Query Results to PL/SQL Variables

You can use the SELECT INTO statement of SQL to assign values to PL/SQL variables.
For each item in the SELECT list, there must be a corresponding, type-compatible
variable in the INTO list. The following example illustrates the concept. Let us create a
table named CUSTOMERS −

(For SQL statements, please refer to the SQL tutorial)

CREATE TABLE CUSTOMERS(

ID INT NOT NULL,
NAME VARCHAR (20) NOT NULL,
AGE INT NOT NULL,
ADDRESS CHAR (25),
SALARY DECIMAL (18, 2),
PRIMARY KEY (ID)
);

Table Created

Let us now insert some values in the table −

INSERT INTO CUSTOMERS (ID,NAME,AGE,ADDRESS,SALARY)

VALUES (1, 'Ramesh', 32, 'Ahmedabad', 2000.00 );

INSERT INTO CUSTOMERS (ID,NAME,AGE,ADDRESS,SALARY)

VALUES (2, 'Khilan', 25, 'Delhi', 1500.00 );

INSERT INTO CUSTOMERS (ID,NAME,AGE,ADDRESS,SALARY)

VALUES (3, 'kaushik', 23, 'Kota', 2000.00 );

INSERT INTO CUSTOMERS (ID,NAME,AGE,ADDRESS,SALARY)

VALUES (4, 'Chaitali', 25, 'Mumbai', 6500.00 );

INSERT INTO CUSTOMERS (ID,NAME,AGE,ADDRESS,SALARY)

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VALUES (5, 'Hardik', 27, 'Bhopal',
-
8500.00 );

INSERT INTO CUSTOMERS (ID,NAME,AGE,ADDRESS,SALARY)

VALUES (6, 'Komal', 22, 'MP', 4500.00 );

The following program assigns values from the above table to PL/SQL variables using the
SELECT INTO clause of SQL −

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DECLARE
c_id [Link]%type := 1;
c_name [Link]%type;
c_addr [Link]%type;
c_sal [Link]%type;
BEGIN
SELECT name, address, salary INTO c_name, c_addr, c_sal
FROM customers
WHERE id = c_id;
dbms_output.put_line
('Customer ' ||c_name || ' from ' || c_addr || ' earns ' || c_sal);
END;
/

When the above code is executed, it produces the following result −

Customer Ramesh from Ahmedabad earns 2000

PL/SQL procedure completed successfully

PL/SQL - Constants and Literals

In this chapter, we will discuss constants and literals in PL/SQL. A constant holds a
value that once declared, does not change in the program. A constant declaration
specifies its name, data type, and value, and allocates storage for it. The declaration can
also impose the NOT NULL constraint.

Declaring a Constant
A constant is declared using the CONSTANT keyword. It requires an initial value and
does not allow that value to be changed. For example −

PI CONSTANT NUMBER := 3.141592654;

DECLARE Advertisement
-- constant declaration -

pi constant number := 3.141592654;

-- other declarations
radius number(5,2);
dia number(5,2);
circumference number(7, 2);

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area number (10, 2);

BEGIN
-- processing
radius := 9.5;
dia := radius * 2;
circumference := 2.0 * pi * radius;
area := pi * radius * radius;
-- output
dbms_output.put_line('Radius: ' || radius);
dbms_output.put_line('Diameter: ' || dia);
dbms_output.put_line('Circumference: ' || circumference);
dbms_output.put_line('Area: ' || area);
END;
/

When the above code is executed at the SQL prompt, it produces the following result −

Radius: 9.5
Diameter: 19
Circumference: 59.69
Area: 283.53

Pl/SQL procedure successfully completed.

The PL/SQL Literals

A literal is an explicit numeric, character, string, or Boolean value not represented by an
identifier. For example, TRUE, 786, NULL, 'tutorialspoint' are all literals of type Boolean,
number, or string. PL/SQL, literals are case-sensitive. PL/SQL supports the following
kinds of literals −

Numeric Literals

Character Literals

StringAdvertisement
Literals

BOOLEAN Literals -

Date and Time Literals

The following table provides examples from all these categories of literal values.

[Link] Literal Type & Example

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Numeric Literals
050 78 -14 0 +32767
1
6.6667 0.0 -12.0 3.14159 +7800.00
6E5 1.0E-8 3.14159e0 -1E38 -9.5e-3

Character Literals
2
'A' '%' '9' ' ' 'z' '('

String Literals
'Hello, world!'
3
'Tutorials Point'
'19-NOV-12'

BOOLEAN Literals
4
TRUE, FALSE, and NULL.

Date and Time Literals

5 DATE '1978-12-25';
TIMESTAMP '2012-10-29 12:01:01';

To embed single quotes within a string literal, place two single quotes next to each other
as shown in the following program −

DECLARE
message varchar2(30):= 'That''s [Link]!';
BEGIN
dbms_output.put_line(message);
END;
/

When the above code is executed at the SQL prompt, it produces the following result −

That's [Link]!

PL/SQL procedure successfully completed.

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PL/SQL - Operators
-

In this chapter, we will discuss operators in PL/SQL. An operator is a symbol that tells the
compiler to perform specific mathematical or logical manipulation. PL/SQL language is
rich in built-in operators and provides the following types of operators −

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Arithmetic operators

Relational operators

Comparison operators

Logical operators

String operators

Here, we will understand the arithmetic, relational, comparison and logical operators one
by one. The String operators will be discussed in a later chapter − PL/SQL - Strings.

Arithmetic Operators
Following table shows all the arithmetic operators supported by PL/SQL. Let us assume
variable A holds 10 and variable B holds 5, then −

Show Examples

Operator Description Example

+ Adds two operands A + B will give 15

- Subtracts second operand from the first A - B will give 5

* Multiplies both operands A * B will give 50

/ Divides numerator by de-numerator A / B will give 2

Exponentiation operator, raises one operand to the A ** B will give

**
power of other 100000

Relational Operators
Relational operators compare two expressions or values and return a Boolean result.
Following table shows all the relational operators supported by PL/SQL. Let us assume
variable A holds 10 and variable B holds 20, then −

Show Examples

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Operator -
Description Example

Checks if the values of two operands are equal or not, if (A = B) is not

=
yes then condition becomes true. true.

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!=
Checks if the values of two operands are equal or not, if (A != B) is
<>
values are not equal then condition becomes true. true.
~=

Checks if the value of left operand is greater than the

(A > B) is not
> value of right operand, if yes then condition becomes
true.
true.

Checks if the value of left operand is less than the value (A < B) is
<
of right operand, if yes then condition becomes true. true.

Checks if the value of left operand is greater than or equal

(A >= B) is
>= to the value of right operand, if yes then condition
not true.
becomes true.

Checks if the value of left operand is less than or equal to

(A <= B) is
<= the value of right operand, if yes then condition becomes
true
true.

Comparison Operators
Comparison operators are used for comparing one expression to another. The result is
always either TRUE, FALSE or NULL.

Show Examples

Operator Description Example

The LIKE operator compares a character, If 'Zara Ali' like 'Z% A_i'
string, or CLOB value to a pattern and returns a Boolean true,
LIKE
returns TRUE if the value matches the whereas, 'Nuha Ali' like 'Z%
pattern and FALSE if it does not. A_i' returns a Boolean false.

If x = 10 then, x between 5
The BETWEEN operator tests whether a
and 20 returns true, x between
value lies in a specified range. x
BETWEEN 5 and 10 returns true, but x
BETWEEN a AND b means that x >= a
between 11 and 20 returns
and x <= b.
false.
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If x = 'm' then, x in ('a', 'b',
The IN operator tests- set membership. x
'c') returns Boolean false but x
IN IN (set) means that x is equal to any
in ('m', 'n', 'o') returns Boolean
member of set.
true.

IS NULL The IS NULL operator returns the If x = 'm', then 'x is null'
BOOLEAN value TRUE if its operand is returns Boolean false.

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NULL or FALSE if it is not NULL.

Comparisons involving NULL values
always yield NULL.

Logical Operators
Following table shows the Logical operators supported by PL/SQL. All these operators
work on Boolean operands and produce Boolean results. Let us assume variable A holds
true and variable B holds false, then −

Show Examples

Operator Description Examples

Called the logical AND operator. If both the operands are (A and B) is
and
true then condition becomes true. false.

Called the logical OR Operator. If any of the two operands (A or B) is

or
is true then condition becomes true. true.

Called the logical NOT Operator. Used to reverse the

not (A and B)
not logical state of its operand. If a condition is true then
is true.
Logical NOT operator will make it false.

PL/SQL Operator Precedence

Operator precedence determines the grouping of terms in an expression. This affects
how an expression is evaluated. Certain operators have higher precedence than others;
for example, the multiplication operator has higher precedence than the addition
operator.

For example, x = 7 + 3 * 2; here, x is assigned 13, not 20 because operator * has

higher precedence than +, so it first gets multiplied with 3*2 and then adds into 7.

Here, operators with the highest precedence appear at the top of the table, those with
the lowest appear at the bottom. Within an expression, higher precedence operators will
be evaluated first.

The precedence of operators goes as follows: =, <, >, <=, >=, <>, !=, ~=, ^=, IS
Advertisement
NULL, LIKE, BETWEEN, IN. -

Show Examples

Operator Operation

** exponentiation

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+, - identity, negation

*, / multiplication, division

+, -, || addition, subtraction, concatenation

comparison

NOT logical negation

AND conjunction

OR inclusion

PL/SQL - Conditions
In this chapter, we will discuss conditions in PL/SQL. Decision-making structures require
that the programmer specify one or more conditions to be evaluated or tested by the
program, along with a statement or statements to be executed if the condition is
determined to be true, and optionally, other statements to be executed if the condition is
determined to be false.

Following is the general form of a typical conditional (i.e., decision making) structure
found in most of the programming languages −

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-

PL/SQL programming language provides following types of decision-making statements.

Click the following links to check their detail.

[Link] Statement & Description

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IF - THEN statement
The IF statement associates a condition with a sequence of statements
1 enclosed by the keywords THEN and END IF. If the condition is true, the
statements get executed and if the condition is false or NULL then the IF
statement does nothing.

IF-THEN-ELSE statement
IF statement adds the keyword ELSE followed by an alternative sequence of
2 statement. If the condition is false or NULL, then only the alternative sequence
of statements get executed. It ensures that either of the sequence of
statements is executed.

IF-THEN-ELSIF statement
3
It allows you to choose between several alternatives.

Case statement
Like the IF statement, the CASE statement selects one sequence of
statements to execute.
4
However, to select the sequence, the CASE statement uses a selector rather
than multiple Boolean expressions. A selector is an expression whose value is
used to select one of several alternatives.

Searched CASE statement

5 The searched CASE statement has no selector, and it's WHEN clauses contain
search conditions that yield Boolean values.

nested IF-THEN-ELSE
6 You can use one IF-THEN or IF-THEN-ELSIF statement inside another IF-
THEN or IF-THEN-ELSIF statement(s).

PL/SQL - Loops
In this chapter, we will discuss Loops in PL/SQL. There may be a situation when you need
to execute a block of code several number of times. In general, statements are executed
sequentially: The first statement in a function is executed first, followed by the second,
and so on.

Programming languages provide various control structures that allow for more
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complicated execution paths.
-

A loop statement allows us to execute a statement or group of statements multiple times

and following is the general form of a loop statement in most of the programming
languages −

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PL/SQL provides the following types of loop to handle the looping requirements. Click the
following links to check their detail.

[Link] Loop Type & Description

PL/SQL Basic LOOP

In this loop structure, sequence of statements is enclosed between the LOOP
1
and the END LOOP statements. At each iteration, the sequence of statements is
executed and then control resumes at the top of the loop.

PL/SQL WHILE LOOP

2 Repeats a statement or group of statements while a given condition is true. It
tests the condition before executing the loop body.

PL/SQL FOR LOOP

3 Execute a sequence of statements multiple times and abbreviates the code that
manages the loop variable.

Nested loops in PL/SQL

4
You can use one or more loop inside any another basic loop, while, or for loop.

Labeling Advertisement
a PL/SQL Loop
-
PL/SQL loops can be labeled. The label should be enclosed by double angle brackets (<<
and >>) and appear at the beginning of the LOOP statement. The label name can also
appear at the end of the LOOP statement. You may use the label in the EXIT statement
to exit from the loop.

The following program illustrates the concept −

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DECLARE
i number(1);
j number(1);
BEGIN
<< outer_loop >>
FOR i IN 1..3 LOOP
<< inner_loop >>
FOR j IN 1..3 LOOP
dbms_output.put_line('i is: '|| i || ' and j is: ' || j);
END loop inner_loop;
END loop outer_loop;
END;
/

When the above code is executed at the SQL prompt, it produces the following result −

i is: 1 and j is: 1

i is: 1 and j is: 2
i is: 1 and j is: 3
i is: 2 and j is: 1
i is: 2 and j is: 2
i is: 2 and j is: 3
i is: 3 and j is: 1
i is: 3 and j is: 2
i is: 3 and j is: 3

PL/SQL procedure successfully completed.

The Loop Control Statements

Loop control statements change execution from its normal sequence. When execution
leaves a scope, all automatic objects that were created in that scope are destroyed.

PL/SQL supports the following control statements. Labeling loops also help in taking the
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control outside a loop. Click the following links to check their details.
-

[Link] Control Statement & Description

EXIT statement
1 The Exit statement completes the loop and control passes to the statement
immediately after the END LOOP.

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CONTINUE statement
2 Causes the loop to skip the remainder of its body and immediately retest its
condition prior to reiterating.

GOTO statement
3 Transfers control to the labeled statement. Though it is not advised to use the
GOTO statement in your program.

PL/SQL - Strings
The string in PL/SQL is actually a sequence of characters with an optional size
specification. The characters could be numeric, letters, blank, special characters or a
combination of all. PL/SQL offers three kinds of strings −

Fixed-length strings − In such strings, programmers specify the length while

declaring the string. The string is right-padded with spaces to the length so
specified.

Variable-length strings − In such strings, a maximum length up to 32,767, for

the string is specified and no padding takes place.

Character large objects (CLOBs) − These are variable-length strings that can
be up to 128 terabytes.

PL/SQL strings could be either variables or literals. A string literal is enclosed within
quotation marks. For example,

'This is a string literal.' Or 'hello world'

To include a single quote inside a string literal, you need to type two single quotes next
to one another. For example,

'this isn''t what it looks like'

DeclaringAdvertisement
String Variables
-
Oracle database provides numerous string datatypes, such as CHAR, NCHAR, VARCHAR2,
NVARCHAR2, CLOB, and NCLOB. The datatypes prefixed with an 'N' are 'national
character set' datatypes, that store Unicode character data.

If you need to declare a variable-length string, you must provide the maximum length of
that string. For example, the VARCHAR2 data type. The following example illustrates
declaring and using some string variables −

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DECLARE
name varchar2(20);
company varchar2(30);
introduction clob;
choice char(1);
BEGIN
name := 'John Smith';
company := 'Infotech';
introduction := ' Hello! I''m John Smith from Infotech.';
choice := 'y';
IF choice = 'y' THEN
dbms_output.put_line(name);
dbms_output.put_line(company);
dbms_output.put_line(introduction);
END IF;
END;
/

When the above code is executed at the SQL prompt, it produces the following result −

John Smith
Infotech
Hello! I'm John Smith from Infotech.

PL/SQL procedure successfully completed

To declare a fixed-length string, use the CHAR datatype. Here you do not have to specify
a maximum length for a fixed-length variable. If you leave off the length constraint,
Oracle Database automatically uses a maximum length required. The following two
declarations are identical −

red_flag CHAR(1) := 'Y';

red_flag CHAR := 'Y';

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-
PL/SQL String Functions and Operators
PL/SQL offers the concatenation operator (||) for joining two strings. The following table
provides the string functions provided by PL/SQL −

[Link] Function & Purpose

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ASCII(x);
1
Returns the ASCII value of the character x.

CHR(x);
2
Returns the character with the ASCII value of x.

CONCAT(x, y);
3
Concatenates the strings x and y and returns the appended string.

INITCAP(x);
4 Converts the initial letter of each word in x to uppercase and returns that
string.

INSTR(x, find_string [, start] [, occurrence]);

5
Searches for find_string in x and returns the position at which it occurs.

INSTRB(x);
6 Returns the location of a string within another string, but returns the value in
bytes.

LENGTH(x);
7
Returns the number of characters in x.

LENGTHB(x);
8
Returns the length of a character string in bytes for single byte character set.

LOWER(x);
9
Converts the letters in x to lowercase and returns that string.

LPAD(x, width [, pad_string]) ;

10 Pads x with spaces to the left, to bring the total length of the string up to width
characters.

LTRIM(x [, trim_string]);
11
Trims characters from the left of x.

NANVL(x, value);
12 Returns value if x matches the NaN special value (not a number), otherwise x
is returned.

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NLS_INITCAP(x);
13 -
Same as the INITCAP function except that it can use a different sort method as
specified by NLSSORT.

NLS_LOWER(x) ;
14 Same as the LOWER function except that it can use a different sort method as
specified by NLSSORT.

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NLS_UPPER(x);
15 Same as the UPPER function except that it can use a different sort method as
specified by NLSSORT.

NLSSORT(x);
16 Changes the method of sorting the characters. Must be specified before any
NLS function; otherwise, the default sort will be used.

NVL(x, value);
17
Returns value if x is null; otherwise, x is returned.

NVL2(x, value1, value2);

18
Returns value1 if x is not null; if x is null, value2 is returned.

REPLACE(x, search_string, replace_string);

19
Searches x for search_string and replaces it with replace_string.

RPAD(x, width [, pad_string]);

20
Pads x to the right.

RTRIM(x [, trim_string]);
21
Trims x from the right.

SOUNDEX(x) ;
22
Returns a string containing the phonetic representation of x.

SUBSTR(x, start [, length]);

23 Returns a substring of x that begins at the position specified by start. An
optional length for the substring may be supplied.

SUBSTRB(x);
24 Same as SUBSTR except that the parameters are expressed in bytes instead of
characters for the single-byte character systems.

TRIM([trim_char FROM) x);

25
Trims characters from the left and right of x.

UPPER(x);
26
Converts the letters in x to uppercase and returns that string.

Advertisement
Let us now work out on a few examples to understand the concept −
-

Example 1

DECLARE
greetings varchar2(11) := 'hello world';

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BEGIN
dbms_output.put_line(UPPER(greetings));

dbms_output.put_line(LOWER(greetings));

dbms_output.put_line(INITCAP(greetings));

/* retrieve the first character in the string */

dbms_output.put_line ( SUBSTR (greetings, 1, 1));

/* retrieve the last character in the string */

dbms_output.put_line ( SUBSTR (greetings, -1, 1));

/* retrieve five characters,

starting from the seventh position. */
dbms_output.put_line ( SUBSTR (greetings, 7, 5));

/* retrieve the remainder of the string,

starting from the second position. */
dbms_output.put_line ( SUBSTR (greetings, 2));

/* find the location of the first "e" */

dbms_output.put_line ( INSTR (greetings, 'e'));
END;
/

When the above code is executed at the SQL prompt, it produces the following result −

HELLO WORLD
hello world
Hello World
h
d
World
ello World
Advertisement
2 -

PL/SQL procedure successfully completed.

Example 2

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DECLARE
greetings varchar2(30) := '......Hello World.....';
BEGIN
dbms_output.put_line(RTRIM(greetings,'.'));
dbms_output.put_line(LTRIM(greetings, '.'));
dbms_output.put_line(TRIM( '.' from greetings));
END;
/

When the above code is executed at the SQL prompt, it produces the following result −

......Hello World
Hello World.....
Hello World

PL/SQL procedure successfully completed.

PL/SQL - Arrays
In this chapter, we will discuss arrays in PL/SQL. The PL/SQL programming language
provides a data structure called the VARRAY, which can store a fixed-size sequential
collection of elements of the same type. A varray is used to store an ordered collection of
data, however it is often better to think of an array as a collection of variables of the
same type.

All varrays consist of contiguous memory locations. The lowest address corresponds to
the first element and the highest address to the last element.

An array is a part of collection type data and it stands for variable-size arrays. We will
study otherAdvertisement
collection types in a later chapter 'PL/SQL Collections'.
-
Each element in a varray has an index associated with it. It also has a maximum size
that can be changed dynamically.

Creating a Varray Type

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A varray type is created with the CREATE TYPE statement. You must specify the
maximum size and the type of elements stored in the varray.

The basic syntax for creating a VARRAY type at the schema level is −

CREATE OR REPLACE TYPE varray_type_name IS VARRAY(n) of <element_type>

Where,

varray_type_name is a valid attribute name,

n is the number of elements (maximum) in the varray,

element_type is the data type of the elements of the array.

Maximum size of a varray can be changed using the ALTER TYPE statement.

For example,

CREATE Or REPLACE TYPE namearray AS VARRAY(3) OF VARCHAR2(10);

/

Type created.

The basic syntax for creating a VARRAY type within a PL/SQL block is −

TYPE varray_type_name IS VARRAY(n) of <element_type>

For example −

TYPE namearray IS VARRAY(5) OF VARCHAR2(10);

Type grades IS VARRAY(5) OF INTEGER;

Let us now work out on a few examples to understand the concept −

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Example 1 -

The following program illustrates the use of varrays −

DECLARE
type namesarray IS VARRAY(5) OF VARCHAR2(10);
type grades IS VARRAY(5) OF INTEGER;

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names namesarray;
marks grades;
total integer;
BEGIN
names := namesarray('Kavita', 'Pritam', 'Ayan', 'Rishav', 'Aziz');
marks:= grades(98, 97, 78, 87, 92);
total := [Link];
dbms_output.put_line('Total '|| total || ' Students');
FOR i in 1 .. total LOOP
dbms_output.put_line('Student: ' || names(i) || '
Marks: ' || marks(i));
END LOOP;
END;
/

When the above code is executed at the SQL prompt, it produces the following result −

Total 5 Students
Student: Kavita Marks: 98
Student: Pritam Marks: 97
Student: Ayan Marks: 78
Student: Rishav Marks: 87
Student: Aziz Marks: 92

PL/SQL procedure successfully completed.

Please note −

In Oracle environment, the starting index for varrays is always 1.

You can initialize the varray elements using the constructor method of the varray
type, which has the same name as the varray.

Varrays are one-dimensional arrays.

A varray is automatically NULL when it is declared and must be initialized before

its elements can be referenced.
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-

Example 2
Elements of a varray could also be a %ROWTYPE of any database table or %TYPE of any
database table field. The following example illustrates the concept.

We will use the CUSTOMERS table stored in our database as −

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Select * from customers;

+----+----------+-----+-----------+----------+
| ID | NAME | AGE | ADDRESS | SALARY |
+----+----------+-----+-----------+----------+
| 1 | Ramesh | 32 | Ahmedabad | 2000.00 |
| 2 | Khilan | 25 | Delhi | 1500.00 |
| 3 | kaushik | 23 | Kota | 2000.00 |
| 4 | Chaitali | 25 | Mumbai | 6500.00 |
| 5 | Hardik | 27 | Bhopal | 8500.00 |
| 6 | Komal | 22 | MP | 4500.00 |
+----+----------+-----+-----------+----------+

Following example makes the use of cursor, which you will study in detail in a separate
chapter.

DECLARE
CURSOR c_customers is
SELECT name FROM customers;
type c_list is varray (6) of [Link]%type;
name_list c_list := c_list();
counter integer :=0;
BEGIN
FOR n IN c_customers LOOP
counter := counter + 1;
name_list.extend;
name_list(counter) := [Link];
dbms_output.put_line('Customer('||counter ||'):'||name_list(counter));
END LOOP;
END;
/

When the above code is executed at the SQL prompt, it produces the following result −

Advertisement
Customer(1): Ramesh -
Customer(2): Khilan
Customer(3): kaushik
Customer(4): Chaitali
Customer(5): Hardik
Customer(6): Komal

[Link] 44/108
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PL/SQL procedure successfully completed.

PL/SQL - Procedures
In this chapter, we will discuss Procedures in PL/SQL. A subprogram is a program
unit/module that performs a particular task. These subprograms are combined to form
larger programs. This is basically called the 'Modular design'. A subprogram can be
invoked by another subprogram or program which is called the calling program.

A subprogram can be created −

At the schema level

Inside a package

Inside a PL/SQL block

At the schema level, subprogram is a standalone subprogram. It is created with the

CREATE PROCEDURE or the CREATE FUNCTION statement. It is stored in the database
and can be deleted with the DROP PROCEDURE or DROP FUNCTION statement.

A subprogram created inside a package is a packaged subprogram. It is stored in the

database and can be deleted only when the package is deleted with the DROP PACKAGE
statement. We will discuss packages in the chapter 'PL/SQL - Packages'.

PL/SQL subprograms are named PL/SQL blocks that can be invoked with a set of
parameters. PL/SQL provides two kinds of subprograms −

Functions − These subprograms return a single value; mainly used to compute

and return a value.

Procedures − These subprograms do not return a value directly; mainly used to

perform an action.

This chapter is going to cover important aspects of a PL/SQL procedure. We will

discuss PL/SQL function in the next chapter.
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Parts of a PL/SQL Subprogram

-

Each PL/SQL subprogram has a name, and may also have a parameter list. Like
anonymous PL/SQL blocks, the named blocks will also have the following three parts −

[Link] Parts & Description

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Declarative Part
It is an optional part. However, the declarative part for a subprogram does not
start with the DECLARE keyword. It contains declarations of types, cursors,
1
constants, variables, exceptions, and nested subprograms. These items are
local to the subprogram and cease to exist when the subprogram completes
execution.

Executable Part
2 This is a mandatory part and contains statements that perform the designated
action.

Exception-handling
3 This is again an optional part. It contains the code that handles run-time
errors.

Creating a Procedure
A procedure is created with the CREATE OR REPLACE PROCEDURE statement. The
simplified syntax for the CREATE OR REPLACE PROCEDURE statement is as follows −

CREATE [OR REPLACE] PROCEDURE procedure_name

[(parameter_name [IN | OUT | IN OUT] type [, ...])]
{IS | AS}
BEGIN
< procedure_body >
END procedure_name;

Where,

procedure-name specifies the name of the procedure.

[OR REPLACE] option allows the modification of an existing procedure.

The optional parameter list contains name, mode and types of the parameters.
IN represents the value that will be passed from outside and OUT represents the
parameter that will be used to return a value outside of the procedure.

procedure-body contains the executable part.

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-
The AS keyword is used instead of the IS keyword for creating a standalone
procedure.

Example

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The following example creates a simple procedure that displays the string 'Hello World!'
on the screen when executed.

CREATE OR REPLACE PROCEDURE greetings

AS
BEGIN
dbms_output.put_line('Hello World!');
END;
/

When the above code is executed using the SQL prompt, it will produce the following
result −

Procedure created.

Executing a Standalone Procedure

A standalone procedure can be called in two ways −

Using the EXECUTE keyword

Calling the name of the procedure from a PL/SQL block

The above procedure named 'greetings' can be called with the EXECUTE keyword as −

EXECUTE greetings;

The above call will display −

Hello World

PL/SQL procedure successfully completed.

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The procedure can also be called from another PL/SQL block −
-

BEGIN
greetings;
END;
/

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The above call will display −

Hello World

PL/SQL procedure successfully completed.

Deleting a Standalone Procedure

A standalone procedure is deleted with the DROP PROCEDURE statement. Syntax for
deleting a procedure is −

DROP PROCEDURE procedure-name;

You can drop the greetings procedure by using the following statement −

DROP PROCEDURE greetings;

Parameter Modes in PL/SQL Subprograms

The following table lists out the parameter modes in PL/SQL subprograms −

[Link] Parameter Mode & Description

IN
An IN parameter lets you pass a value to the subprogram. It is a read-only
parameter. Inside the subprogram, an IN parameter acts like a constant. It
1 cannot be assigned a value. You can pass a constant, literal, initialized variable,
or expression as an IN parameter. You can also initialize it to a default value;
however, in that case, it is omitted from the subprogram call. It is the default
mode of parameter passing. Parameters are passed by reference.

OUT
An OUT parameter returns a value to the calling program. Inside the
2 subprogram, an OUT parameter acts like a variable. You can change its value
andAdvertisement
reference the value after assigning it. The actual parameter must be
variable and it is passed
- by value.

3 IN OUT
An IN OUT parameter passes an initial value to a subprogram and returns an
updated value to the caller. It can be assigned a value and the value can be
read.

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The actual parameter corresponding to an IN OUT formal parameter must be a

variable, not a constant or an expression. Formal parameter must be assigned
a value. Actual parameter is passed by value.

IN & OUT Mode Example 1

This program finds the minimum of two values. Here, the procedure takes two numbers
using the IN mode and returns their minimum using the OUT parameters.

DECLARE
a number;
b number;
c number;
PROCEDURE findMin(x IN number, y IN number, z OUT number) IS
BEGIN
IF x < y THEN
z:= x;
ELSE
z:= y;
END IF;
END;
BEGIN
a:= 23;
b:= 45;
findMin(a, b, c);
dbms_output.put_line(' Minimum of (23, 45) : ' || c);
END;
/

When the above code is executed at the SQL prompt, it produces the following result −

Minimum of (23, 45) : 23

PL/SQL procedure successfully completed.

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-
IN & OUT Mode Example 2
This procedure computes the square of value of a passed value. This example shows how
we can use the same parameter to accept a value and then return another result.

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DECLARE
a number;
PROCEDURE squareNum(x IN OUT number) IS
BEGIN
x := x * x;
END;
BEGIN
a:= 23;
squareNum(a);
dbms_output.put_line(' Square of (23): ' || a);
END;
/

When the above code is executed at the SQL prompt, it produces the following result −

Square of (23): 529

PL/SQL procedure successfully completed.

Methods for Passing Parameters

Actual parameters can be passed in three ways −

Positional notation

Named notation

Mixed notation

Positional Notation
In positional notation, you can call the procedure as −

findMin(a, b, c, d);
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-
In positional notation, the first actual parameter is substituted for the first formal
parameter; the second actual parameter is substituted for the second formal parameter,
and so on. So, a is substituted for x, b is substituted for y, c is substituted for z and d is
substituted for m.

Named Notation

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In named notation, the actual parameter is associated with the formal parameter using
the arrow symbol ( => ). The procedure call will be like the following −

findMin(x => a, y => b, z => c, m => d);

Mixed Notation

In mixed notation, you can mix both notations in procedure call; however, the positional
notation should precede the named notation.

The following call is legal −

findMin(a, b, c, m => d);

However, this is not legal:

findMin(x => a, b, c, d);

PL/SQL - Functions
In this chapter, we will discuss the functions in PL/SQL. A function is same as a
procedure except that it returns a value. Therefore, all the discussions of the previous
chapter are true for functions too.

Creating a Function
A standalone function is created using the CREATE FUNCTION statement. The
simplified syntax for the CREATE OR REPLACE PROCEDURE statement is as follows −

CREATE [OR REPLACE] FUNCTION function_name

[(parameter_name [IN | OUT | IN OUT] type [, ...])]
RETURN return_datatype
{IS | AS}
BEGIN Advertisement
< function_body > -
END [function_name];

Where,

function-name specifies the name of the function.

[Link] 51/108
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[OR REPLACE] option allows the modification of an existing function.

The optional parameter list contains name, mode and types of the parameters. IN
represents the value that will be passed from outside and OUT represents the
parameter that will be used to return a value outside of the procedure.

The function must contain a return statement.

The RETURN clause specifies the data type you are going to return from the
function.

function-body contains the executable part.

The AS keyword is used instead of the IS keyword for creating a standalone

function.

Example

The following example illustrates how to create and call a standalone function. This
function returns the total number of CUSTOMERS in the customers table.

We will use the CUSTOMERS table, which we had created in the PL/SQL Variables chapter
−

Select * from customers;

+----+----------+-----+-----------+----------+
| ID | NAME | AGE | ADDRESS | SALARY |
+----+----------+-----+-----------+----------+
| 1 | Ramesh | 32 | Ahmedabad | 2000.00 |
| 2 | Khilan | 25 | Delhi | 1500.00 |
| 3 | kaushik | 23 | Kota | 2000.00 |
| 4 | Chaitali | 25 | Mumbai | 6500.00 |
| 5 | Hardik | 27 | Bhopal | 8500.00 |
| 6 | Komal | 22 | MP | 4500.00 |
+----+----------+-----+-----------+----------+

CREATE OR REPLACE FUNCTION totalCustomers

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RETURN number IS
-
total number(2) := 0;
BEGIN
SELECT count(*) into total
FROM customers;

RETURN total;

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END;
/

When the above code is executed using the SQL prompt, it will produce the following
result −

Function created.

Calling a Function
While creating a function, you give a definition of what the function has to do. To use a
function, you will have to call that function to perform the defined task. When a program
calls a function, the program control is transferred to the called function.

A called function performs the defined task and when its return statement is executed or
when the last end statement is reached, it returns the program control back to the
main program.

To call a function, you simply need to pass the required parameters along with the
function name and if the function returns a value, then you can store the returned value.
Following program calls the function totalCustomers from an anonymous block −

DECLARE
c number(2);
BEGIN
c := totalCustomers();
dbms_output.put_line('Total no. of Customers: ' || c);
END;
/

When the above code is executed at the SQL prompt, it produces the following result −

Total no. of Customers: 6

PL/SQL procedure successfully completed.

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-

Example

The following example demonstrates Declaring, Defining, and Invoking a Simple PL/SQL
Function that computes and returns the maximum of two values.

[Link] 53/108
 Page 54 of 108

DECLARE
a number;
b number;
c number;
FUNCTION findMax(x IN number, y IN number)
RETURN number
IS
z number;
BEGIN
IF x > y THEN
z:= x;
ELSE
Z:= y;
END IF;
RETURN z;
END;
BEGIN
a:= 23;
b:= 45;
c := findMax(a, b);
dbms_output.put_line(' Maximum of (23,45): ' || c);
END;
/

When the above code is executed at the SQL prompt, it produces the following result −

Maximum of (23,45): 45

PL/SQL procedure successfully completed.

PL/SQL Recursive Functions

We have seen that a program or subprogram may call another subprogram. When a
subprogramAdvertisement
calls itself, it is referred to as a recursive call and the process is known as
recursion. -

To illustrate the concept, let us calculate the factorial of a number. Factorial of a number
n is defined as −

n! = n*(n-1)!
= n*(n-1)*(n-2)!

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 Page 55 of 108

...
= n*(n-1)*(n-2)*(n-3)... 1

The following program calculates the factorial of a given number by calling itself
recursively −

DECLARE
num number;
factorial number;

FUNCTION fact(x number)

RETURN number
IS
f number;
BEGIN
IF x=0 THEN
f := 1;
ELSE
f := x * fact(x-1);
END IF;
RETURN f;
END;

BEGIN
num:= 6;
factorial := fact(num);
dbms_output.put_line(' Factorial '|| num || ' is ' || factorial);
END;
/

When the above code is executed at the SQL prompt, it produces the following result −

Factorial 6 is 720

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PL/SQL procedure successfully completed.
-

PL/SQL - Cursors
In this chapter, we will discuss the cursors in PL/SQL. Oracle creates a memory area,
known as the context area, for processing an SQL statement, which contains all the

[Link] 55/108
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information needed for processing the statement; for example, the number of rows
processed, etc.

A cursor is a pointer to this context area. PL/SQL controls the context area through a
cursor. A cursor holds the rows (one or more) returned by a SQL statement. The set of
rows the cursor holds is referred to as the active set.

You can name a cursor so that it could be referred to in a program to fetch and process
the rows returned by the SQL statement, one at a time. There are two types of cursors −

Implicit cursors

Explicit cursors

Implicit Cursors
Implicit cursors are automatically created by Oracle whenever an SQL statement is
executed, when there is no explicit cursor for the statement. Programmers cannot
control the implicit cursors and the information in it.

Whenever a DML statement (INSERT, UPDATE and DELETE) is issued, an implicit cursor is
associated with this statement. For INSERT operations, the cursor holds the data that
needs to be inserted. For UPDATE and DELETE operations, the cursor identifies the rows
that would be affected.

In PL/SQL, you can refer to the most recent implicit cursor as the SQL cursor, which
always has attributes such as %FOUND, %ISOPEN, %NOTFOUND, and
%ROWCOUNT. The SQL cursor has additional attributes, %BULK_ROWCOUNT and
%BULK_EXCEPTIONS, designed for use with the FORALL statement. The following
table provides the description of the most used attributes −

[Link] Attribute & Description

%FOUND
Returns TRUE if an INSERT, UPDATE, or DELETE statement affected one or
1
more rows or a SELECT INTO statement returned one or more rows. Otherwise,
it returns FALSE.

%NOTFOUND
Advertisement
The logical opposite of %FOUND.
- It returns TRUE if an INSERT, UPDATE, or
2
DELETE statement affected no rows, or a SELECT INTO statement returned no
rows. Otherwise, it returns FALSE.

%ISOPEN
3 Always returns FALSE for implicit cursors, because Oracle closes the SQL cursor
automatically after executing its associated SQL statement.

[Link] 56/108
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%ROWCOUNT
4 Returns the number of rows affected by an INSERT, UPDATE, or DELETE
statement, or returned by a SELECT INTO statement.

Any SQL cursor attribute will be accessed as sql%attribute_name as shown below in

the example.

Example

We will be using the CUSTOMERS table we had created and used in the previous
chapters.

Select * from customers;

+----+----------+-----+-----------+----------+
| ID | NAME | AGE | ADDRESS | SALARY |
+----+----------+-----+-----------+----------+
| 1 | Ramesh | 32 | Ahmedabad | 2000.00 |
| 2 | Khilan | 25 | Delhi | 1500.00 |
| 3 | kaushik | 23 | Kota | 2000.00 |
| 4 | Chaitali | 25 | Mumbai | 6500.00 |
| 5 | Hardik | 27 | Bhopal | 8500.00 |
| 6 | Komal | 22 | MP | 4500.00 |
+----+----------+-----+-----------+----------+

The following program will update the table and increase the salary of each customer by
500 and use the SQL%ROWCOUNT attribute to determine the number of rows affected
−

DECLARE
total_rows number(2);
BEGIN
UPDATE customers
SET salary = salary + 500;
IF sql%notfound THEN
Advertisement
dbms_output.put_line('no- customers selected');
ELSIF sql%found THEN
total_rows := sql%rowcount;
dbms_output.put_line( total_rows || ' customers selected ');
END IF;

[Link] 57/108
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END;
/

When the above code is executed at the SQL prompt, it produces the following result −

6 customers selected

PL/SQL procedure successfully completed.

If you check the records in customers table, you will find that the rows have been
updated −

Select * from customers;

+----+----------+-----+-----------+----------+
| ID | NAME | AGE | ADDRESS | SALARY |
+----+----------+-----+-----------+----------+
| 1 | Ramesh | 32 | Ahmedabad | 2500.00 |
| 2 | Khilan | 25 | Delhi | 2000.00 |
| 3 | kaushik | 23 | Kota | 2500.00 |
| 4 | Chaitali | 25 | Mumbai | 7000.00 |
| 5 | Hardik | 27 | Bhopal | 9000.00 |
| 6 | Komal | 22 | MP | 5000.00 |
+----+----------+-----+-----------+----------+

Explicit Cursors
Explicit cursors are programmer-defined cursors for gaining more control over the
context area. An explicit cursor should be defined in the declaration section of the
PL/SQL Block. It is created on a SELECT Statement which returns more than one row.

The syntax for creating an explicit cursor is −

CURSOR cursor_name IS select_statement;

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-
Working with an explicit cursor includes the following steps −

Declaring the cursor for initializing the memory

Opening the cursor for allocating the memory

Fetching the cursor for retrieving the data

[Link] 58/108
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Closing the cursor to release the allocated memory

Declaring the Cursor

Declaring the cursor defines the cursor with a name and the associated SELECT
statement. For example −

CURSOR c_customers IS
SELECT id, name, address FROM customers;

Opening the Cursor

Opening the cursor allocates the memory for the cursor and makes it ready for fetching
the rows returned by the SQL statement into it. For example, we will open the above
defined cursor as follows −

OPEN c_customers;

Fetching the Cursor

Fetching the cursor involves accessing one row at a time. For example, we will fetch rows
from the above-opened cursor as follows −

FETCH c_customers INTO c_id, c_name, c_addr;

Closing the Cursor

Closing the cursor means releasing the allocated memory. For example, we will close the
above-opened cursor as follows −

CLOSE c_customers;

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Example -

Following is a complete example to illustrate the concepts of explicit cursors &minua;

DECLARE
c_id [Link]%type;

[Link] 59/108
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c_name [Link]%type;
c_addr [Link]%type;
CURSOR c_customers is
SELECT id, name, address FROM customers;
BEGIN
OPEN c_customers;
LOOP
FETCH c_customers into c_id, c_name, c_addr;
EXIT WHEN c_customers%notfound;
dbms_output.put_line(c_id || ' ' || c_name || ' ' || c_addr);
END LOOP;
CLOSE c_customers;
END;
/

When the above code is executed at the SQL prompt, it produces the following result −

1 Ramesh Ahmedabad
2 Khilan Delhi
3 kaushik Kota
4 Chaitali Mumbai
5 Hardik Bhopal
6 Komal MP

PL/SQL procedure successfully completed.

PL/SQL - Records
In this chapter, we will discuss Records in PL/SQL. A record is a data structure that can
hold data items of different kinds. Records consist of different fields, similar to a row of a
database table.

For example, you want to keep track of your books in a library. You might want to track
the following attributes about each book, such as Title, Author, Subject, Book ID. A
record containing a field for each of these items allows treating a BOOK as a logical unit
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and allows you to organize and represent
- its information in a better way.

PL/SQL can handle the following types of records −

Table-based

Cursor-based records

[Link] 60/108
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User-defined records

Table-Based Records
The %ROWTYPE attribute enables a programmer to create table-based and
cursorbased records.

The following example illustrates the concept of table-based records. We will be using
the CUSTOMERS table we had created and used in the previous chapters −

DECLARE
customer_rec customers%rowtype;
BEGIN
SELECT * into customer_rec
FROM customers
WHERE id = 5;
dbms_output.put_line('Customer ID: ' || customer_rec.id);
dbms_output.put_line('Customer Name: ' || customer_rec.name);
dbms_output.put_line('Customer Address: ' || customer_rec.address);
dbms_output.put_line('Customer Salary: ' || customer_rec.salary);
END;
/

When the above code is executed at the SQL prompt, it produces the following result −

Customer ID: 5
Customer Name: Hardik
Customer Address: Bhopal
Customer Salary: 9000

PL/SQL procedure successfully completed.

Cursor-Based Records
Advertisement
The following example illustrates the concept of cursor-based records. We will be using
-
the CUSTOMERS table we had created and used in the previous chapters −

DECLARE
CURSOR customer_cur is
SELECT id, name, address
FROM customers;

[Link] 61/108
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customer_rec customer_cur%rowtype;
BEGIN
OPEN customer_cur;
LOOP
FETCH customer_cur into customer_rec;
EXIT WHEN customer_cur%notfound;
DBMS_OUTPUT.put_line(customer_rec.id || ' ' || customer_rec.name);
END LOOP;
END;
/

When the above code is executed at the SQL prompt, it produces the following result −

1 Ramesh
2 Khilan
3 kaushik
4 Chaitali
5 Hardik
6 Komal

PL/SQL procedure successfully completed.

User-Defined Records
PL/SQL provides a user-defined record type that allows you to define the different record
structures. These records consist of different fields. Suppose you want to keep track of
your books in a library. You might want to track the following attributes about each book
−

Title

Author

Subject

Book ID
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-

Defining a Record
The record type is defined as −

TYPE
type_name IS RECORD

[Link] 62/108
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( field_name1 datatype1 [NOT NULL] [:= DEFAULT EXPRESSION],

field_name2 datatype2 [NOT NULL] [:= DEFAULT EXPRESSION],
...
field_nameN datatypeN [NOT NULL] [:= DEFAULT EXPRESSION);
record-name type_name;

The Book record is declared in the following way −

DECLARE
TYPE books IS RECORD
(title varchar(50),
author varchar(50),
subject varchar(100),
book_id number);
book1 books;
book2 books;

Accessing Fields

To access any field of a record, we use the dot (.) operator. The member access operator
is coded as a period between the record variable name and the field that we wish to
access. Following is an example to explain the usage of record −

DECLARE
type books is record
(title varchar(50),
author varchar(50),
subject varchar(100),
book_id number);
book1 books;
book2 books;
BEGIN
-- Book 1 specification
[Link] := 'C Programming';
Advertisement
[Link] := 'Nuha Ali ';
-
[Link] := 'C Programming Tutorial';
book1.book_id := 6495407;
-- Book 2 specification
[Link] := 'Telecom Billing';
[Link] := 'Zara Ali';
[Link] := 'Telecom Billing Tutorial';

[Link] 63/108
 Page 64 of 108

book2.book_id := 6495700;

-- Print book 1 record

dbms_output.put_line('Book 1 title : '|| [Link]);
dbms_output.put_line('Book 1 author : '|| [Link]);
dbms_output.put_line('Book 1 subject : '|| [Link]);
dbms_output.put_line('Book 1 book_id : ' || book1.book_id);

-- Print book 2 record

dbms_output.put_line('Book 2 title : '|| [Link]);
dbms_output.put_line('Book 2 author : '|| [Link]);
dbms_output.put_line('Book 2 subject : '|| [Link]);
dbms_output.put_line('Book 2 book_id : '|| book2.book_id);
END;
/

When the above code is executed at the SQL prompt, it produces the following result −

Book 1 title : C Programming

Book 1 author : Nuha Ali
Book 1 subject : C Programming Tutorial
Book 1 book_id : 6495407
Book 2 title : Telecom Billing
Book 2 author : Zara Ali
Book 2 subject : Telecom Billing Tutorial
Book 2 book_id : 6495700

PL/SQL procedure successfully completed.

Records as Subprogram Parameters

You can pass a record as a subprogram parameter just as you pass any other variable.
You can also access the record fields in the same way as you accessed in the above
example −
Advertisement
-
DECLARE
type books is record
(title varchar(50),
author varchar(50),
subject varchar(100),
book_id number);

[Link] 64/108
 Page 65 of 108

book1 books;
book2 books;
PROCEDURE printbook (book books) IS
BEGIN
dbms_output.put_line ('Book title : ' || [Link]);
dbms_output.put_line('Book author : ' || [Link]);
dbms_output.put_line( 'Book subject : ' || [Link]);
dbms_output.put_line( 'Book book_id : ' || book.book_id);
END;

BEGIN
-- Book 1 specification
[Link] := 'C Programming';
[Link] := 'Nuha Ali ';
[Link] := 'C Programming Tutorial';
book1.book_id := 6495407;

-- Book 2 specification
[Link] := 'Telecom Billing';
[Link] := 'Zara Ali';
[Link] := 'Telecom Billing Tutorial';
book2.book_id := 6495700;

-- Use procedure to print book info

printbook(book1);
printbook(book2);
END;
/

When the above code is executed at the SQL prompt, it produces the following result −

Book title : C Programming

Book author : Nuha Ali
Book subject : C Programming Tutorial
Book book_id : 6495407
Advertisement
Book title : Telecom Billing -
Book author : Zara Ali
Book subject : Telecom Billing Tutorial
Book book_id : 6495700

PL/SQL procedure successfully completed.

[Link] 65/108
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PL/SQL - Exceptions
In this chapter, we will discuss Exceptions in PL/SQL. An exception is an error condition
during a program execution. PL/SQL supports programmers to catch such conditions
using EXCEPTION block in the program and an appropriate action is taken against the
error condition. There are two types of exceptions −

System-defined exceptions

User-defined exceptions

Syntax for Exception Handling

The general syntax for exception handling is as follows. Here you can list down as many
exceptions as you can handle. The default exception will be handled using WHEN others
THEN −

DECLARE
<declarations section>
BEGIN
<executable command(s)>
EXCEPTION
<exception handling goes here >
WHEN exception1 THEN
exception1-handling-statements
WHEN exception2 THEN
exception2-handling-statements
WHEN exception3 THEN
exception3-handling-statements
........
WHEN others THEN
exception3-handling-statements
END;

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Example -

Let us write a code to illustrate the concept. We will be using the CUSTOMERS table we
had created and used in the previous chapters −

DECLARE
c_id [Link]%type := 8;

[Link] 66/108
 Page 67 of 108

c_name [Link]%type;
c_addr [Link]%type;
BEGIN
SELECT name, address INTO c_name, c_addr
FROM customers
WHERE id = c_id;
DBMS_OUTPUT.PUT_LINE ('Name: '|| c_name);
DBMS_OUTPUT.PUT_LINE ('Address: ' || c_addr);

EXCEPTION
WHEN no_data_found THEN
dbms_output.put_line('No such customer!');
WHEN others THEN
dbms_output.put_line('Error!');
END;
/

When the above code is executed at the SQL prompt, it produces the following result −

No such customer!

PL/SQL procedure successfully completed.

The above program displays the name and address of a customer whose ID is given.
Since there is no customer with ID value 8 in our database, the program raises the run-
time exception NO_DATA_FOUND, which is captured in the EXCEPTION block.

Raising Exceptions
Exceptions are raised by the database server automatically whenever there is any
internal database error, but exceptions can be raised explicitly by the programmer by
using the command RAISE. Following is the simple syntax for raising an exception −

DECLARE
exception_name EXCEPTION;
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BEGIN -
IF condition THEN
RAISE exception_name;
END IF;
EXCEPTION
WHEN exception_name THEN

[Link] 67/108
 Page 68 of 108

statement;
END;

You can use the above syntax in raising the Oracle standard exception or any user-
defined exception. In the next section, we will give you an example on raising a user-
defined exception. You can raise the Oracle standard exceptions in a similar way.

User-defined Exceptions
PL/SQL allows you to define your own exceptions according to the need of your program.
A user-defined exception must be declared and then raised explicitly, using either a
RAISE statement or the procedure
DBMS_STANDARD.RAISE_APPLICATION_ERROR.

The syntax for declaring an exception is −

DECLARE
my-exception EXCEPTION;

Example

The following example illustrates the concept. This program asks for a customer ID,
when the user enters an invalid ID, the exception invalid_id is raised.

DECLARE
c_id [Link]%type := &cc_id;
c_name [Link]%type;
c_addr [Link]%type;
-- user defined exception
ex_invalid_id EXCEPTION;
BEGIN
IF c_id <= 0 THEN
RAISE ex_invalid_id;
ELSE
SELECT name, address INTO c_name, c_addr
Advertisement
FROM customers
-
WHERE id = c_id;
DBMS_OUTPUT.PUT_LINE ('Name: '|| c_name);
DBMS_OUTPUT.PUT_LINE ('Address: ' || c_addr);
END IF;

EXCEPTION

[Link] 68/108
 Page 69 of 108

WHEN ex_invalid_id THEN

dbms_output.put_line('ID must be greater than zero!');
WHEN no_data_found THEN
dbms_output.put_line('No such customer!');
WHEN others THEN
dbms_output.put_line('Error!');
END;
/

When the above code is executed at the SQL prompt, it produces the following result −

Enter value for cc_id: -6 (let's enter a value -6)

old 2: c_id [Link]%type := &cc_id;
new 2: c_id [Link]%type := -6;
ID must be greater than zero!

PL/SQL procedure successfully completed.

Pre-defined Exceptions
PL/SQL provides many pre-defined exceptions, which are executed when any database
rule is violated by a program. For example, the predefined exception NO_DATA_FOUND is
raised when a SELECT INTO statement returns no rows. The following table lists few of
the important pre-defined exceptions −

Oracle
Exception SQLCODE Description
Error

It is raised when a null object is

ACCESS_INTO_NULL 06530 -6530
automatically assigned a value.

It is raised when none of the choices in

the WHEN clause of a CASE statement
CASE_NOT_FOUND 06592 -6592
is selected, and there is no ELSE
clause.
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-
It is raised when a program attempts
to apply collection methods other than
EXISTS to an uninitialized nested table
COLLECTION_IS_NULL 06531 -6531
or varray, or the program attempts to
assign values to the elements of an
uninitialized nested table or varray.

[Link] 69/108
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It is raised when duplicate values are

DUP_VAL_ON_INDEX 00001 -1 attempted to be stored in a column
with unique index.

It is raised when attempts are made to

make a cursor operation that is not
INVALID_CURSOR 01001 -1001
allowed, such as closing an unopened
cursor.

It is raised when the conversion of a

character string into a number fails
INVALID_NUMBER 01722 -1722
because the string does not represent
a valid number.

It is raised when a program attempts

LOGIN_DENIED 01017 -1017 to log on to the database with an
invalid username or password.

It is raised when a SELECT INTO

NO_DATA_FOUND 01403 +100
statement returns no rows.

It is raised when a database call is

NOT_LOGGED_ON 01012 -1012 issued without being connected to the
database.

It is raised when PL/SQL has an

PROGRAM_ERROR 06501 -6501
internal problem.

It is raised when a cursor fetches value

ROWTYPE_MISMATCH 06504 -6504 in a variable having incompatible data
type.

It is raised when a member method is

SELF_IS_NULL 30625 -30625 invoked, but the instance of the object
type was not initialized.

It is raised when PL/SQL ran out of

STORAGE_ERROR 06500 -6500
memory or memory was corrupted.

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It is raised when a SELECT INTO
TOO_MANY_ROWS 01422 -1422
-
statement returns more than one row.

It is raised when an arithmetic,

VALUE_ERROR 06502 -6502 conversion, truncation, or
sizeconstraint error occurs.

[Link] 70/108
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It is raised when an attempt is made

ZERO_DIVIDE 01476 1476
to divide a number by zero.

PL/SQL - Triggers
In this chapter, we will discuss Triggers in PL/SQL. Triggers are stored programs, which
are automatically executed or fired when some events occur. Triggers are, in fact, written
to be executed in response to any of the following events −

A database manipulation (DML) statement (DELETE, INSERT, or UPDATE)

A database definition (DDL) statement (CREATE, ALTER, or DROP).

A database operation (SERVERERROR, LOGON, LOGOFF, STARTUP, or

SHUTDOWN).

Triggers can be defined on the table, view, schema, or database with which the event is
associated.

Benefits of Triggers
Triggers can be written for the following purposes −

Generating some derived column values automatically

Enforcing referential integrity

Event logging and storing information on table access

Auditing

Synchronous replication of tables

Imposing security authorizations

Preventing invalid transactions

Creating Triggers
The syntax Advertisement
for creating a trigger is −
-

CREATE [OR REPLACE ] TRIGGER trigger_name

{BEFORE | AFTER | INSTEAD OF }
{INSERT [OR] | UPDATE [OR] | DELETE}
[OF col_name]
ON table_name

[Link] 71/108
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[REFERENCING OLD AS o NEW AS n]

[FOR EACH ROW]
WHEN (condition)
DECLARE
Declaration-statements
BEGIN
Executable-statements
EXCEPTION
Exception-handling-statements
END;

Where,

CREATE [OR REPLACE] TRIGGER trigger_name − Creates or replaces an existing

trigger with the trigger_name.

{BEFORE | AFTER | INSTEAD OF} − This specifies when the trigger will be
executed. The INSTEAD OF clause is used for creating trigger on a view.

{INSERT [OR] | UPDATE [OR] | DELETE} − This specifies the DML operation.

[OF col_name] − This specifies the column name that will be updated.

[ON table_name] − This specifies the name of the table associated with the
trigger.

[REFERENCING OLD AS o NEW AS n] − This allows you to refer new and old
values for various DML statements, such as INSERT, UPDATE, and DELETE.

[FOR EACH ROW] − This specifies a row-level trigger, i.e., the trigger will be
executed for each row being affected. Otherwise the trigger will execute just once
when the SQL statement is executed, which is called a table level trigger.

WHEN (condition) − This provides a condition for rows for which the trigger would
fire. This clause is valid only for row-level triggers.

Example
To start with, we will be using the CUSTOMERS table we had created and used in the
previous chapters −
Advertisement
-
Select * from customers;

+----+----------+-----+-----------+----------+
| ID | NAME | AGE | ADDRESS | SALARY |
+----+----------+-----+-----------+----------+
| 1 | Ramesh | 32 | Ahmedabad | 2000.00 |

[Link] 72/108
 Page 73 of 108

| 2 | Khilan | 25 | Delhi | 1500.00 |

| 3 | kaushik | 23 | Kota | 2000.00 |
| 4 | Chaitali | 25 | Mumbai | 6500.00 |
| 5 | Hardik | 27 | Bhopal | 8500.00 |
| 6 | Komal | 22 | MP | 4500.00 |
+----+----------+-----+-----------+----------+

The following program creates a row-level trigger for the customers table that would
fire for INSERT or UPDATE or DELETE operations performed on the CUSTOMERS table.
This trigger will display the salary difference between the old values and new values −

CREATE OR REPLACE TRIGGER display_salary_changes

BEFORE DELETE OR INSERT OR UPDATE ON customers
FOR EACH ROW
WHEN ([Link] > 0)
DECLARE
sal_diff number;
BEGIN
sal_diff := :[Link] - :[Link];
dbms_output.put_line('Old salary: ' || :[Link]);
dbms_output.put_line('New salary: ' || :[Link]);
dbms_output.put_line('Salary difference: ' || sal_diff);
END;
/

When the above code is executed at the SQL prompt, it produces the following result −

Trigger created.

The following points need to be considered here −

OLD and NEW references are not available for table-level triggers, rather you can
use them for record-level triggers.

If you Advertisement
want to query the table in the same trigger, then you should use the AFTER
keyword, because triggers can- query the table or change it again only after the
initial changes are applied and the table is back in a consistent state.

The above trigger has been written in such a way that it will fire before any
DELETE or INSERT or UPDATE operation on the table, but you can write your
trigger on a single or multiple operations, for example BEFORE DELETE, which will
fire whenever a record will be deleted using the DELETE operation on the table.

[Link] 73/108
 Page 74 of 108

Triggering a Trigger
Let us perform some DML operations on the CUSTOMERS table. Here is one INSERT
statement, which will create a new record in the table −

INSERT INTO CUSTOMERS (ID,NAME,AGE,ADDRESS,SALARY)

VALUES (7, 'Kriti', 22, 'HP', 7500.00 );

When a record is created in the CUSTOMERS table, the above create trigger,
display_salary_changes will be fired and it will display the following result −

Old salary:
New salary: 7500
Salary difference:

Because this is a new record, old salary is not available and the above result comes as
null. Let us now perform one more DML operation on the CUSTOMERS table. The UPDATE
statement will update an existing record in the table −

UPDATE customers
SET salary = salary + 500
WHERE id = 2;

When a record is updated in the CUSTOMERS table, the above create trigger,
display_salary_changes will be fired and it will display the following result −

Old salary: 1500

New salary: 2000
Salary difference: 500

PL/SQL - Packages
In this chapter, we will discuss the Packages in PL/SQL. Packages are schema objects
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that groups logically related PL/SQL
- types, variables, and subprograms.

A package will have two mandatory parts −

Package specification

Package body or definition

[Link] 74/108
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Package Specification
The specification is the interface to the package. It just DECLARES the types, variables,
constants, exceptions, cursors, and subprograms that can be referenced from outside
the package. In other words, it contains all information about the content of the
package, but excludes the code for the subprograms.

All objects placed in the specification are called public objects. Any subprogram not in
the package specification but coded in the package body is called a private object.

The following code snippet shows a package specification having a single procedure. You
can have many global variables defined and multiple procedures or functions inside a
package.

CREATE PACKAGE cust_sal AS

PROCEDURE find_sal(c_id [Link]%type);
END cust_sal;
/

When the above code is executed at the SQL prompt, it produces the following result −

Package created.

Package Body
The package body has the codes for various methods declared in the package
specification and other private declarations, which are hidden from the code outside the
package.

The CREATE PACKAGE BODY Statement is used for creating the package body. The
following code snippet shows the package body declaration for the cust_sal package
created above. I assumed that we already have CUSTOMERS table created in our
database as mentioned in the PL/SQL - Variables chapter.

CREATE OR REPLACE PACKAGE BODY cust_sal AS

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-
PROCEDURE find_sal(c_id [Link]%TYPE) IS
c_sal [Link]%TYPE;
BEGIN
SELECT salary INTO c_sal
FROM customers
WHERE id = c_id;

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dbms_output.put_line('Salary: '|| c_sal);

END find_sal;
END cust_sal;
/

When the above code is executed at the SQL prompt, it produces the following result −

Package body created.

Using the Package Elements

The package elements (variables, procedures or functions) are accessed with the
following syntax −

package_name.element_name;

Consider, we already have created the above package in our database schema, the
following program uses the find_sal method of the cust_sal package −

DECLARE
code [Link]%type := &cc_id;
BEGIN
cust_sal.find_sal(code);
END;
/

When the above code is executed at the SQL prompt, it prompts to enter the customer
ID and when you enter an ID, it displays the corresponding salary as follows −

Enter value for cc_id: 1

Salary: 3000

PL/SQL procedure successfully completed.

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-

Example
The following program provides a more complete package. We will use the CUSTOMERS
table stored in our database with the following records −

[Link] 76/108
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Select * from customers;

+----+----------+-----+-----------+----------+
| ID | NAME | AGE | ADDRESS | SALARY |
+----+----------+-----+-----------+----------+
| 1 | Ramesh | 32 | Ahmedabad | 3000.00 |
| 2 | Khilan | 25 | Delhi | 3000.00 |
| 3 | kaushik | 23 | Kota | 3000.00 |
| 4 | Chaitali | 25 | Mumbai | 7500.00 |
| 5 | Hardik | 27 | Bhopal | 9500.00 |
| 6 | Komal | 22 | MP | 5500.00 |
+----+----------+-----+-----------+----------+

The Package Specification

CREATE OR REPLACE PACKAGE c_package AS

-- Adds a customer
PROCEDURE addCustomer(c_id [Link]%type,
c_name [Link]%type,
c_age [Link]%type,
c_addr [Link]%type,
c_sal [Link]%type);

-- Removes a customer
PROCEDURE delCustomer(c_id [Link]%TYPE);
--Lists all customers
PROCEDURE listCustomer;

END c_package;
/

When the above code is executed at the SQL prompt, it creates the above package and
displays the following result −
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-
Package created.

Creating the Package Body

[Link] 77/108
 Page 78 of 108

CREATE OR REPLACE PACKAGE BODY c_package AS

PROCEDURE addCustomer(c_id [Link]%type,
c_name [Link]%type,
c_age [Link]%type,
c_addr [Link]%type,
c_sal [Link]%type)
IS
BEGIN
INSERT INTO customers (id,name,age,address,salary)
VALUES(c_id, c_name, c_age, c_addr, c_sal);
END addCustomer;

PROCEDURE delCustomer(c_id [Link]%type) IS

BEGIN
DELETE FROM customers
WHERE id = c_id;
END delCustomer;

PROCEDURE listCustomer IS
CURSOR c_customers is
SELECT name FROM customers;
TYPE c_list is TABLE OF [Link]%type;
name_list c_list := c_list();
counter integer :=0;
BEGIN
FOR n IN c_customers LOOP
counter := counter +1;
name_list.extend;
name_list(counter) := [Link];
dbms_output.put_line('Customer(' ||counter|| ')'||name_list(counter));
END LOOP;
END listCustomer;

END c_package;
/ Advertisement
-

The above example makes use of the nested table. We will discuss the concept of
nested table in the next chapter.

When the above code is executed at the SQL prompt, it produces the following result −

[Link] 78/108
 Page 79 of 108

Package body created.

Using The Package

The following program uses the methods declared and defined in the package
c_package.

DECLARE
code [Link]%type:= 8;
BEGIN
c_package.addcustomer(7, 'Rajnish', 25, 'Chennai', 3500);
c_package.addcustomer(8, 'Subham', 32, 'Delhi', 7500);
c_package.listcustomer;
c_package.delcustomer(code);
c_package.listcustomer;
END;
/

When the above code is executed at the SQL prompt, it produces the following result −

Customer(1): Ramesh
Customer(2): Khilan
Customer(3): kaushik
Customer(4): Chaitali
Customer(5): Hardik
Customer(6): Komal
Customer(7): Rajnish
Customer(8): Subham
Customer(1): Ramesh
Customer(2): Khilan
Customer(3): kaushik
Customer(4): Chaitali
Customer(5): Hardik
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Customer(6): Komal
Customer(7): Rajnish -

PL/SQL procedure successfully completed

PL/SQL - Collections

[Link] 79/108
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In this chapter, we will discuss the Collections in PL/SQL. A collection is an ordered group
of elements having the same data type. Each element is identified by a unique subscript
that represents its position in the collection.

PL/SQL provides three collection types −

Index-by tables or Associative array

Nested table

Variable-size array or Varray

Oracle documentation provides the following characteristics for each type of collections −

Can Be
Collection Number of Subscript Dense or Where Object
Type Elements Type Sparse Created Type
Attribute

Associative
Only in
array (or String or
Unbounded Either PL/SQL No
index-by integer
block
table)

Either in
Starts
PL/SQL
dense, can
Nested table Unbounded Integer block or at Yes
become
schema
sparse
level

Either in
PL/SQL
Variablesize Always
Bounded Integer block or at Yes
array (Varray) dense
schema
level

We have already discussed varray in the chapter 'PL/SQL arrays'. In this chapter, we
will discuss the PL/SQL tables.

Both types Advertisement

of PL/SQL tables, i.e., the index-by tables and the nested tables have the
same structure and their rows are -accessed using the subscript notation. However, these
two types of tables differ in one aspect; the nested tables can be stored in a database
column and the index-by tables cannot.

Index-By Table

[Link] 80/108
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An index-by table (also called an associative array) is a set of key-value pairs. Each
key is unique and is used to locate the corresponding value. The key can be either an
integer or a string.

An index-by table is created using the following syntax. Here, we are creating an index-
by table named table_name, the keys of which will be of the subscript_type and
associated values will be of the element_type

TYPE type_name IS TABLE OF element_type [NOT NULL] INDEX BY subscript_type;

table_name type_name;

Example
Following example shows how to create a table to store integer values along with names
and later it prints the same list of names.

DECLARE
TYPE salary IS TABLE OF NUMBER INDEX BY VARCHAR2(20);
salary_list salary;
name VARCHAR2(20);
BEGIN
-- adding elements to the table
salary_list('Rajnish') := 62000;
salary_list('Minakshi') := 75000;
salary_list('Martin') := 100000;
salary_list('James') := 78000;

-- printing the table

name := salary_list.FIRST;
WHILE name IS NOT null LOOP
dbms_output.put_line
('Salary of ' || name || ' is ' || TO_CHAR(salary_list(name)));
name := salary_list.NEXT(name);
END LOOP;
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END;
-
/

When the above code is executed at the SQL prompt, it produces the following result −

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 Page 82 of 108

Salary of James is 78000

Salary of Martin is 100000
Salary of Minakshi is 75000
Salary of Rajnish is 62000

PL/SQL procedure successfully completed.

Example

Elements of an index-by table could also be a %ROWTYPE of any database table or

%TYPE of any database table field. The following example illustrates the concept. We
will use the CUSTOMERS table stored in our database as −

Select * from customers;

+----+----------+-----+-----------+----------+
| ID | NAME | AGE | ADDRESS | SALARY |
+----+----------+-----+-----------+----------+
| 1 | Ramesh | 32 | Ahmedabad | 2000.00 |
| 2 | Khilan | 25 | Delhi | 1500.00 |
| 3 | kaushik | 23 | Kota | 2000.00 |
| 4 | Chaitali | 25 | Mumbai | 6500.00 |
| 5 | Hardik | 27 | Bhopal | 8500.00 |
| 6 | Komal | 22 | MP | 4500.00 |
+----+----------+-----+-----------+----------+

DECLARE
CURSOR c_customers is
select name from customers;

TYPE c_list IS TABLE of [Link]%type INDEX BY binary_integer;

name_list c_list;
counter integer :=0;
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BEGIN
-
FOR n IN c_customers LOOP
counter := counter +1;
name_list(counter) := [Link];
dbms_output.put_line('Customer('||counter||'):'||name_lis t(counter));
END LOOP;

[Link] 82/108
 Page 83 of 108

END;
/

When the above code is executed at the SQL prompt, it produces the following result −

Customer(1): Ramesh
Customer(2): Khilan
Customer(3): kaushik
Customer(4): Chaitali
Customer(5): Hardik
Customer(6): Komal

PL/SQL procedure successfully completed

Nested Tables
A nested table is like a one-dimensional array with an arbitrary number of elements.
However, a nested table differs from an array in the following aspects −

An array has a declared number of elements, but a nested table does not. The
size of a nested table can increase dynamically.

An array is always dense, i.e., it always has consecutive subscripts. A nested

array is dense initially, but it can become sparse when elements are deleted from
it.

A nested table is created using the following syntax −

TYPE type_name IS TABLE OF element_type [NOT NULL];

table_name type_name;

This declaration is similar to the declaration of an index-by table, but there is no INDEX
BY clause.
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A nested table can be stored in a database
- column. It can further be used for simplifying
SQL operations where you join a single-column table with a larger table. An associative
array cannot be stored in the database.

Example
The following examples illustrate the use of nested table −

[Link] 83/108
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DECLARE
TYPE names_table IS TABLE OF VARCHAR2(10);
TYPE grades IS TABLE OF INTEGER;
names names_table;
marks grades;
total integer;
BEGIN
names := names_table('Kavita', 'Pritam', 'Ayan', 'Rishav', 'Aziz');
marks:= grades(98, 97, 78, 87, 92);
total := [Link];
dbms_output.put_line('Total '|| total || ' Students');
FOR i IN 1 .. total LOOP
dbms_output.put_line('Student:'||names(i)||', Marks:' || marks(i));
end loop;
END;
/

When the above code is executed at the SQL prompt, it produces the following result −

Total 5 Students
Student:Kavita, Marks:98
Student:Pritam, Marks:97
Student:Ayan, Marks:78
Student:Rishav, Marks:87
Student:Aziz, Marks:92

PL/SQL procedure successfully completed.

Example
Elements of a nested table can also be a %ROWTYPE of any database table or %TYPE
of any database table field. The following example illustrates the concept. We will use the
CUSTOMERS table stored in our database as −

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Select * from customers; -

+----+----------+-----+-----------+----------+
| ID | NAME | AGE | ADDRESS | SALARY |
+----+----------+-----+-----------+----------+
| 1 | Ramesh | 32 | Ahmedabad | 2000.00 |
| 2 | Khilan | 25 | Delhi | 1500.00 |

[Link] 84/108
 Page 85 of 108

| 3 | kaushik | 23 | Kota | 2000.00 |

| 4 | Chaitali | 25 | Mumbai | 6500.00 |
| 5 | Hardik | 27 | Bhopal | 8500.00 |
| 6 | Komal | 22 | MP | 4500.00 |
+----+----------+-----+-----------+----------+

DECLARE
CURSOR c_customers is
SELECT name FROM customers;
TYPE c_list IS TABLE of [Link]%type;
name_list c_list := c_list();
counter integer :=0;
BEGIN
FOR n IN c_customers LOOP
counter := counter +1;
name_list.extend;
name_list(counter) := [Link];
dbms_output.put_line('Customer('||counter||'):'||name_list(counter));
END LOOP;
END;
/

When the above code is executed at the SQL prompt, it produces the following result −

Customer(1): Ramesh
Customer(2): Khilan
Customer(3): kaushik
Customer(4): Chaitali
Customer(5): Hardik
Customer(6): Komal

PL/SQL procedure successfully completed.

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Collection Methods -

PL/SQL provides the built-in collection methods that make collections easier to use. The
following table lists the methods and their purpose −

[Link] Method Name & Purpose

[Link] 85/108
 Page 86 of 108

EXISTS(n)
1
Returns TRUE if the nth element in a collection exists; otherwise returns FALSE.

COUNT
2
Returns the number of elements that a collection currently contains.

LIMIT
3
Checks the maximum size of a collection.

FIRST
4 Returns the first (smallest) index numbers in a collection that uses the integer
subscripts.

LAST
5 Returns the last (largest) index numbers in a collection that uses the integer
subscripts.

PRIOR(n)
6
Returns the index number that precedes index n in a collection.

NEXT(n)
7
Returns the index number that succeeds index n.

EXTEND
8
Appends one null element to a collection.

EXTEND(n)
9
Appends n null elements to a collection.

EXTEND(n,i)
10
Appends n copies of the ith element to a collection.

TRIM
11
Removes one element from the end of a collection.

TRIM(n)
12
Removes n elements from the end of a collection.

DELETE
13
Removes all elements from a collection, setting COUNT to 0.
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DELETE(n) -
th
Removes the n element from an associative array with a numeric key or a
14 nested table. If the associative array has a string key, the element
corresponding to the key value is deleted. If n is null, DELETE(n) does
nothing.

15 DELETE(m,n)

[Link] 86/108
 Page 87 of 108

Removes all elements in the range m..n from an associative array or nested
table. If m is larger than n or if m or n is null, DELETE(m,n) does nothing.

Collection Exceptions
The following table provides the collection exceptions and when they are raised −

Collection Exception Raised in Situations

COLLECTION_IS_NULL You try to operate on an atomically null collection.

A subscript designates an element that was deleted, or

NO_DATA_FOUND
a nonexistent element of an associative array.

A subscript exceeds the number of elements in a

SUBSCRIPT_BEYOND_COUNT
collection.

SUBSCRIPT_OUTSIDE_LIMIT A subscript is outside the allowed range.

A subscript is null or not convertible to the key type.

This exception might occur if the key is defined as a
VALUE_ERROR
PLS_INTEGER range, and the subscript is outside this
range.

PL/SQL - Transactions
In this chapter, we will discuss the transactions in PL/SQL. A database transaction is an
atomic unit of work that may consist of one or more related SQL statements. It is called
atomic because the database modifications brought about by the SQL statements that
constitute a transaction can collectively be either committed, i.e., made permanent to
the database or rolled back (undone) from the database.

A successfully executed SQL statement and a committed transaction are not same. Even
if an SQL statement is executed successfully, unless the transaction containing the
statement is committed, it can be rolled back and all changes made by the statement(s)
can be undone.

Starting and Ending a Transaction

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-
A transaction has a beginning and an end. A transaction starts when one of the
following events take place −

The first SQL statement is performed after connecting to the database.

At each new SQL statement issued after a transaction is completed.

[Link] 87/108
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A transaction ends when one of the following events take place −

A COMMIT or a ROLLBACK statement is issued.

A DDL statement, such as CREATE TABLE statement, is issued; because in that
case a COMMIT is automatically performed.

A DCL statement, such as a GRANT statement, is issued; because in that case a

COMMIT is automatically performed.

User disconnects from the database.

User exits from SQL*PLUS by issuing the EXIT command, a COMMIT is

automatically performed.

SQL*Plus terminates abnormally, a ROLLBACK is automatically performed.

A DML statement fails; in that case a ROLLBACK is automatically performed for

undoing that DML statement.

Committing a Transaction
A transaction is made permanent by issuing the SQL command COMMIT. The general
syntax for the COMMIT command is −

COMMIT;

For example,

INSERT INTO CUSTOMERS (ID,NAME,AGE,ADDRESS,SALARY)

VALUES (1, 'Ramesh', 32, 'Ahmedabad', 2000.00 );

INSERT INTO CUSTOMERS (ID,NAME,AGE,ADDRESS,SALARY)

VALUES (2, 'Khilan', 25, 'Delhi', 1500.00 );

INSERT INTO CUSTOMERS (ID,NAME,AGE,ADDRESS,SALARY)

VALUES (3, 'kaushik', 23, 'Kota', 2000.00 );

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INSERT INTO CUSTOMERS (ID,NAME,AGE,ADDRESS,SALARY)
-
VALUES (4, 'Chaitali', 25, 'Mumbai', 6500.00 );

INSERT INTO CUSTOMERS (ID,NAME,AGE,ADDRESS,SALARY)

VALUES (5, 'Hardik', 27, 'Bhopal', 8500.00 );

INSERT INTO CUSTOMERS (ID,NAME,AGE,ADDRESS,SALARY)

[Link] 88/108
 Page 89 of 108

VALUES (6, 'Komal', 22, 'MP', 4500.00 );

COMMIT;

Rolling Back Transactions

Changes made to the database without COMMIT could be undone using the ROLLBACK
command.

The general syntax for the ROLLBACK command is −

ROLLBACK [TO SAVEPOINT < savepoint_name>];

When a transaction is aborted due to some unprecedented situation, like system failure,
the entire transaction since a commit is automatically rolled back. If you are not using
savepoint, then simply use the following statement to rollback all the changes −

ROLLBACK;

Savepoints

Savepoints are sort of markers that help in splitting a long transaction into smaller units
by setting some checkpoints. By setting savepoints within a long transaction, you can roll
back to a checkpoint if required. This is done by issuing the SAVEPOINT command.

The general syntax for the SAVEPOINT command is −

SAVEPOINT < savepoint_name >;

For example

INSERT INTO CUSTOMERS (ID,NAME,AGE,ADDRESS,SALARY)

VALUES (7, 'Rajnish', 27, 'HP', 9500.00 );

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INSERT INTO CUSTOMERS (ID,NAME,AGE,ADDRESS,SALARY)
-
VALUES (8, 'Riddhi', 21, 'WB', 4500.00 );
SAVEPOINT sav1;

UPDATE CUSTOMERS
SET SALARY = SALARY + 1000;
ROLLBACK TO sav1;

[Link] 89/108
 Page 90 of 108

UPDATE CUSTOMERS
SET SALARY = SALARY + 1000
WHERE ID = 7;
UPDATE CUSTOMERS
SET SALARY = SALARY + 1000
WHERE ID = 8;

COMMIT;

ROLLBACK TO sav1 − This statement rolls back all the changes up to the point, where
you had marked savepoint sav1.

After that, the new changes that you make will start.

Automatic Transaction Control

To execute a COMMIT automatically whenever an INSERT, UPDATE or DELETE
command is executed, you can set the AUTOCOMMIT environment variable as −

SET AUTOCOMMIT ON;

You can turn-off the auto commit mode using the following command −

SET AUTOCOMMIT OFF;

PL/SQL - Date & Time

In this chapter, we will discuss the Date and Time in PL/SQL. There are two classes of
date and time related data types in PL/SQL −

Datetime data types

Interval data types
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The Datetime data types are − -

DATE

TIMESTAMP
TIMESTAMP WITH TIME ZONE

[Link] 90/108
 Page 91 of 108

TIMESTAMP WITH LOCAL TIME ZONE

The Interval data types are −

INTERVAL YEAR TO MONTH

INTERVAL DAY TO SECOND

Field Values for Datetime and Interval Data Types

Both datetime and interval data types consist of fields. The values of these fields
determine the value of the data type. The following table lists the fields and their
possible values for datetimes and intervals.

Field Name Valid Datetime Values Valid Interval Values

YEAR -4712 to 9999 (excluding year 0) Any nonzero integer

MONTH 01 to 12 0 to 11

01 to 31 (limited by the values of

DAY MONTH and YEAR, according to the Any nonzero integer
rules of the calendar for the locale)

HOUR 00 to 23 0 to 23

MINUTE 00 to 59 0 to 59

00 to 59.9(n), where 9(n) is the 0 to 59.9(n), where 9(n)

precision of time fractional seconds is the precision of
SECOND
The 9(n) portion is not applicable for interval fractional
DATE. seconds

-12 to 14 (range accommodates

daylight savings time changes)
TIMEZONE_HOUR Not applicable
Not applicable for DATE or
TIMESTAMP.

00 to 59
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TIMEZONE_MINUTE Not applicable
- for DATE or Not applicable
TIMESTAMP.

Not applicable for DATE or

TIMEZONE_REGION Not applicable
TIMESTAMP.

[Link] 91/108
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Not applicable for DATE or

TIMEZONE_ABBR Not applicable
TIMESTAMP.

The Datetime Data Types and Functions

Following are the Datetime data types −

DATE

It stores date and time information in both character and number datatypes. It is made
of information on century, year, month, date, hour, minute, and second. It is specified as
−

TIMESTAMP

It is an extension of the DATE data type. It stores the year, month, and day of the DATE
datatype, along with hour, minute, and second values. It is useful for storing precise time
values.

TIMESTAMP WITH TIME ZONE

It is a variant of TIMESTAMP that includes a time zone region name or a time zone offset
in its value. The time zone offset is the difference (in hours and minutes) between local
time and UTC. This data type is useful for collecting and evaluating date information
across geographic regions.

TIMESTAMP WITH LOCAL TIME ZONE

It is another variant of TIMESTAMP that includes a time zone offset in its value.

Following table provides the Datetime functions (where, x has the datetime value) −

[Link] Function Name & Description

ADD_MONTHS(x, y);
1
Adds y months to x.

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LAST_DAY(x);
2 -
Returns the last day of the month.

MONTHS_BETWEEN(x, y);
3
Returns the number of months between x and y.

NEXT_DAY(x, day);
4
Returns the datetime of the next day after x.

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NEW_TIME;
5
Returns the time/day value from a time zone specified by the user.

ROUND(x [, unit]);
6
Rounds x.

SYSDATE();
7
Returns the current datetime.

TRUNC(x [, unit]);
8
Truncates x.

Timestamp functions (where, x has a timestamp value) −

[Link] Function Name & Description

CURRENT_TIMESTAMP();
1 Returns a TIMESTAMP WITH TIME ZONE containing the current session time
along with the session time zone.

EXTRACT({ YEAR | MONTH | DAY | HOUR | MINUTE | SECOND } | {

TIMEZONE_HOUR | TIMEZONE_MINUTE } | { TIMEZONE_REGION | }
2 TIMEZONE_ABBR ) FROM x)
Extracts and returns a year, month, day, hour, minute, second, or time zone
from x.

FROM_TZ(x, time_zone);
3 Converts the TIMESTAMP x and the time zone specified by time_zone to a
TIMESTAMP WITH TIMEZONE.

LOCALTIMESTAMP();
4
Returns a TIMESTAMP containing the local time in the session time zone.

SYSTIMESTAMP();
5 Returns a TIMESTAMP WITH TIME ZONE containing the current database time
along with the database time zone.

SYS_EXTRACT_UTC(x);
6 Converts the TIMESTAMP WITH TIMEZONE x to a TIMESTAMP containing the
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date and time in UTC.
-
TO_TIMESTAMP(x, [format]);
7
Converts the string x to a TIMESTAMP.

TO_TIMESTAMP_TZ(x, [format]);
8
Converts the string x to a TIMESTAMP WITH TIMEZONE.

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Examples
The following code snippets illustrate the use of the above functions −

Example 1

SELECT SYSDATE FROM DUAL;

Output −

08/31/2012 5:25:34 PM

Example 2

SELECT TO_CHAR(CURRENT_DATE, 'DD-MM-YYYY HH:MI:SS') FROM DUAL;

Output −

31-08-2012 05:26:14

Example 3

SELECT ADD_MONTHS(SYSDATE, 5) FROM DUAL;

Output −

01/31/2013 5:26:31 PM

Example 4

SELECT LOCALTIMESTAMP FROM DUAL;

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Output − -

8/31/2012 5:26:55.347000 PM

The Interval Data Types and Functions

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Following are the Interval data types −

IINTERVAL YEAR TO MONTH − It stores a period of time using the YEAR and
MONTH datetime fields.

INTERVAL DAY TO SECOND − It stores a period of time in terms of days, hours,

minutes, and seconds.

Interval Functions

[Link] Function Name & Description

NUMTODSINTERVAL(x, interval_unit);
1
Converts the number x to an INTERVAL DAY TO SECOND.

NUMTOYMINTERVAL(x, interval_unit);
2
Converts the number x to an INTERVAL YEAR TO MONTH.

TO_DSINTERVAL(x);
3
Converts the string x to an INTERVAL DAY TO SECOND.

TO_YMINTERVAL(x);
4
Converts the string x to an INTERVAL YEAR TO MONTH.

PL/SQL - DBMS Output

In this chapter, we will discuss the DBMS Output in PL/SQL. The DBMS_OUTPUT is a
built-in package that enables you to display output, debugging information, and send
messages from PL/SQL blocks, subprograms, packages, and triggers. We have already
used this package throughout our tutorial.

Let us look at a small code snippet that will display all the user tables in the database.
Try it in your database to list down all the table names −

BEGIN
dbms_output.put_line (user || ' Tables in the database:');
FOR t Advertisement
IN (SELECT table_name FROM user_tables)
LOOP -

dbms_output.put_line(t.table_name);
END LOOP;
END;
/

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DBMS_OUTPUT Subprograms
The DBMS_OUTPUT package has the following subprograms −

[Link] Subprogram & Purpose

DBMS_OUTPUT.DISABLE;
1
Disables message output.

DBMS_OUTPUT.ENABLE(buffer_size IN INTEGER DEFAULT 20000);

2 Enables message output. A NULL value of buffer_size represents unlimited
buffer size.

DBMS_OUTPUT.GET_LINE (line OUT VARCHAR2, status OUT

3 INTEGER);
Retrieves a single line of buffered information.

DBMS_OUTPUT.GET_LINES (lines OUT CHARARR, numlines IN OUT

4 INTEGER);
Retrieves an array of lines from the buffer.

DBMS_OUTPUT.NEW_LINE;
5
Puts an end-of-line marker.

DBMS_OUTPUT.PUT(item IN VARCHAR2);
6
Places a partial line in the buffer.

DBMS_OUTPUT.PUT_LINE(item IN VARCHAR2);
7
Places a line in the buffer.

Example

DECLARE
lines dbms_output.chararr;
num_lines number;
BEGIN
-- enable the buffer with default size 20000
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dbms_output.enable;
-

dbms_output.put_line('Hello Reader!');
dbms_output.put_line('Hope you have enjoyed the tutorials!');
dbms_output.put_line('Have a great time exploring pl/sql!');

num_lines := 3;

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dbms_output.get_lines(lines, num_lines);

FOR i IN 1..num_lines LOOP

dbms_output.put_line(lines(i));
END LOOP;
END;
/

When the above code is executed at the SQL prompt, it produces the following result −

Hello Reader!
Hope you have enjoyed the tutorials!
Have a great time exploring pl/sql!

PL/SQL procedure successfully completed.

PL/SQL - Object Oriented

In this chapter, we will discuss Object-Oriented PL/SQL. PL/SQL allows defining an object
type, which helps in designing object-oriented database in Oracle. An object type allows
you to create composite types. Using objects allow you to implement real world objects
with specific structure of data and methods for operating it. Objects have attributes and
methods. Attributes are properties of an object and are used for storing an object's
state; and methods are used for modeling its behavior.

Objects are created using the CREATE [OR REPLACE] TYPE statement. Following is an
example to create a simple address object consisting of few attributes −

CREATE OR REPLACE TYPE address AS OBJECT

(house_no varchar2(10),
street varchar2(30),
city varchar2(20),
state varchar2(10),
pincode Advertisement
varchar2(10)
); -

When the above code is executed at the SQL prompt, it produces the following result −

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Type created.

Let's create one more object customer where we will wrap attributes and methods
together to have object-oriented feeling −

CREATE OR REPLACE TYPE customer AS OBJECT

(code number(5),
name varchar2(30),
contact_no varchar2(12),
addr address,
member procedure display
);
/

When the above code is executed at the SQL prompt, it produces the following result −

Type created.

Instantiating an Object
Defining an object type provides a blueprint for the object. To use this object, you need
to create instances of this object. You can access the attributes and methods of the
object using the instance name and the access operator (.) as follows −

DECLARE
residence address;
BEGIN
residence := address('103A', '[Link]', 'Jaipur', 'Rajasthan','201301');
dbms_output.put_line('House No: '|| residence.house_no);
dbms_output.put_line('Street: '|| [Link]);
dbms_output.put_line('City: '|| [Link]);
dbms_output.put_line('State: '|| [Link]);
dbms_output.put_line('Pincode: '|| [Link]);
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END;
-
/

When the above code is executed at the SQL prompt, it produces the following result −

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House No: 103A

Street: [Link]
City: Jaipur
State: Rajasthan
Pincode: 201301

PL/SQL procedure successfully completed.

Member Methods
Member methods are used for manipulating the attributes of the object. You provide
the declaration of a member method while declaring the object type. The object body
defines the code for the member methods. The object body is created using the CREATE
TYPE BODY statement.

Constructors are functions that return a new object as its value. Every object has a
system defined constructor method. The name of the constructor is same as the object
type. For example −

residence := address('103A', '[Link]', 'Jaipur', 'Rajasthan','201301');

The comparison methods are used for comparing objects. There are two ways to
compare objects −

Map method

The Map method is a function implemented in such a way that its value depends upon
the value of the attributes. For example, for a customer object, if the customer code is
same for two customers, both customers could be the same. So the relationship between
these two objects would depend upon the value of code.

Order method

The Order method implements some internal logic for comparing two objects. For
example, for a rectangle object, a rectangle is bigger than another rectangle if both its
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sides are bigger.
-

Using Map method

Let us try to understand the above concepts using the following rectangle object −

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CREATE OR REPLACE TYPE rectangle AS OBJECT

(length number,
width number,
member function enlarge( inc number) return rectangle,
member procedure display,
map member function measure return number
);
/

When the above code is executed at the SQL prompt, it produces the following result −

Type created.

Creating the type body −

CREATE OR REPLACE TYPE BODY rectangle AS

MEMBER FUNCTION enlarge(inc number) return rectangle IS
BEGIN
return rectangle([Link] + inc, [Link] + inc);
END enlarge;
MEMBER PROCEDURE display IS
BEGIN
dbms_output.put_line('Length: '|| length);
dbms_output.put_line('Width: '|| width);
END display;
MAP MEMBER FUNCTION measure return number IS
BEGIN
return (sqrt(length*length + width*width));
END measure;
END;
/

When the above code is executed at the SQL prompt, it produces the following result −
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-
Type body created.

Now using the rectangle object and its member functions −

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DECLARE
r1 rectangle;
r2 rectangle;
r3 rectangle;
inc_factor number := 5;
BEGIN
r1 := rectangle(3, 4);
r2 := rectangle(5, 7);
r3 := [Link](inc_factor);
[Link];
IF (r1 > r2) THEN -- calling measure function
[Link];
ELSE
[Link];
END IF;
END;
/

When the above code is executed at the SQL prompt, it produces the following result −

Length: 8
Width: 9
Length: 5
Width: 7

PL/SQL procedure successfully completed.

Using Order method

Now, the same effect could be achieved using an order method. Let us recreate the
rectangle object using an order method −

CREATE OR REPLACE TYPE rectangle AS OBJECT

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(length number,
width number, -

member procedure display,

order member function measure(r rectangle) return number
);
/

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When the above code is executed at the SQL prompt, it produces the following result −

Type created.

Creating the type body −

CREATE OR REPLACE TYPE BODY rectangle AS

MEMBER PROCEDURE display IS
BEGIN
dbms_output.put_line('Length: '|| length);
dbms_output.put_line('Width: '|| width);
END display;
ORDER MEMBER FUNCTION measure(r rectangle) return number IS
BEGIN
IF(sqrt([Link]*[Link] + [Link]*[Link])>
sqrt([Link]*[Link] + [Link]*[Link])) then
return(1);
ELSE
return(-1);
END IF;
END measure;
END;
/

When the above code is executed at the SQL prompt, it produces the following result −

Type body created.

Using the rectangle object and its member functions −

DECLARE
r1 rectangle;
r2 rectangle;
BEGIN Advertisement
r1 := rectangle(23, 44); -

r2 := rectangle(15, 17);
[Link];
[Link];
IF (r1 > r2) THEN -- calling measure function
[Link];

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ELSE
[Link];
END IF;
END;
/

When the above code is executed at the SQL prompt, it produces the following result −

Length: 23
Width: 44
Length: 15
Width: 17
Length: 23
Width: 44

PL/SQL procedure successfully completed.

Inheritance for PL/SQL Objects

PL/SQL allows creating object from the existing base objects. To implement inheritance,
the base objects should be declared as NOT FINAL. The default is FINAL.

The following programs illustrate the inheritance in PL/SQL Objects. Let us create
another object named TableTop, this is inherited from the Rectangle object. For this, we
need to create the base rectangle object −

CREATE OR REPLACE TYPE rectangle AS OBJECT

(length number,
width number,
member function enlarge( inc number) return rectangle,
NOT FINAL member procedure display) NOT FINAL
/

When the above code is executed at the SQL prompt, it produces the following result −
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-
Type created.

Creating the base type body −

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CREATE OR REPLACE TYPE BODY rectangle AS

MEMBER FUNCTION enlarge(inc number) return rectangle IS
BEGIN
return rectangle([Link] + inc, [Link] + inc);
END enlarge;
MEMBER PROCEDURE display IS
BEGIN
dbms_output.put_line('Length: '|| length);
dbms_output.put_line('Width: '|| width);
END display;
END;
/

When the above code is executed at the SQL prompt, it produces the following result −

Type body created.

Creating the child object tabletop −

CREATE OR REPLACE TYPE tabletop UNDER rectangle

(
material varchar2(20),
OVERRIDING member procedure display
)
/

When the above code is executed at the SQL prompt, it produces the following result −

Type created.

Creating the type body for the child object tabletop

CREATE ORAdvertisement
REPLACE TYPE BODY tabletop AS
-
OVERRIDING MEMBER PROCEDURE display IS
BEGIN
dbms_output.put_line('Length: '|| length);
dbms_output.put_line('Width: '|| width);
dbms_output.put_line('Material: '|| material);

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END display;
/

When the above code is executed at the SQL prompt, it produces the following result −

Type body created.

Using the tabletop object and its member functions −

DECLARE
t1 tabletop;
t2 tabletop;
BEGIN
t1:= tabletop(20, 10, 'Wood');
t2 := tabletop(50, 30, 'Steel');
[Link];
[Link];
END;
/

When the above code is executed at the SQL prompt, it produces the following result −

Length: 20
Width: 10
Material: Wood
Length: 50
Width: 30
Material: Steel

PL/SQL procedure successfully completed.

Abstract Objects in PL/SQL

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The NOT INSTANTIABLE clause allows you to declare an abstract object. You cannot
-
use an abstract object as it is; you will have to create a subtype or child type of such
objects to use its functionalities.

For example,

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CREATE OR REPLACE TYPE rectangle AS OBJECT

(length number,
width number,
NOT INSTANTIABLE NOT FINAL MEMBER PROCEDURE display)
NOT INSTANTIABLE NOT FINAL
/

When the above code is executed at the SQL prompt, it produces the following result −

Type created.

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