ORACLE Series TIGHT / Oracle9 i : The Complete Reference / Loney, Koch / 222521-1 / Front Matter Blind Folio FM:i Oracle9i: The Complete Reference Kevin Loney George Koch And the Experts at TUSC McGraw-Hill/Osborne New York Chicago San Francisco Lisbon London Madrid Mexico City Milan New Delhi San Juan Seoul Singapore Sydney Toronto P:\010Comp\Oracle8\521-1\CD\Ventura\book.vp Friday, July 19, 2002 4:10:30 PM Color profile: Generic CMYK printer profile Composite Default screen ORACLE Series TIGHT / Oracle9 i : The Complete Reference / Loney, Koch / 222521-1 / Front Matter Blind Folio FM:ii McGraw-Hill/Osborne 2600 Tenth Street Berkeley, California 94710 U.S.A. To arrange bulk purchase discounts for sales promotions, premiums, or fund-raisers, please contact McGraw-Hill/Osborne at the above address. For information on translations or book distributors outside the U.S.A., please see the International Contact Information page immediately following the index of this book. Oracle 9 i : The Complete Reference Copyright © 2002 by The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. (Publisher). All rights reserved. Printed in the United States of America. Except as permitted under the Copyright Act of 1976, no part of this publication may be reproduced or distributed in any form or by any means, or stored in a database or retrieval system, without the prior written permission of Publisher. Oracle is a registered trademark and Oracle9 i is a trademark or registered trademark of Oracle Corporation. 1234567890 DOC DOC 0198765432 Book p/n 0-07-222707-9 and CD p/n 0-07-222708-7 parts of ISBN 0-07-222521-1 Publisher Brandon A. Nordin Vice President & Associate Publisher Scott Rogers Acquisitions Editor Lisa McClain Project Editor LeeAnn Pickrell Acquisitions Coordinator Athena Honore Technical Editor Bob Bryla Copy Editor Margaret Berson Proofreader Cheryl Abel Indexer James Minkin Computer Designers Tabitha M. Cagan, Lucie Ericksen Illustrators Michael Mueller, Lyssa Wald Cover Series Design Damore Johann Design, Inc. This book was composed with Corel VENTURA™ Publisher. Information has been obtained by Publisher from sources believed to be reliable. However, because of the possibility of human or mechanical error by our sources, Publisher, or others, Publisher does not guarantee to the accuracy, adequacy, or completeness of any information included in this work and is not responsible for any errors or omissions or the results obtained from the use of such information. Oracle Corporation does not make any representations or warranties as to the accuracy, adequacy or completeness of any information contained in this Work, and is not responsible for any errors or omissions. P:\010Comp\Oracle8\521-1\CD\Ventura\book.vp Friday, July 19, 2002 4:10:31 PM Color profile: Generic CMYK printer profile Composite Default screen To my parents, and to Sue, Emily, Rachel, and Jane —K.L. To Elwood Brant, Jr. (Woody), 1949–1990 —G.K. ORACLE Series TIGHT / Oracle9 i : The Complete Reference / Loney, Koch / 222521-1 / Front Matter Blind Folio FM:iii P:\010Comp\Oracle8\521-1\CD\Ventura\book.vp Friday, July 19, 2002 4:10:31 PM Color profile: Generic CMYK printer profile Composite Default screen ORACLE Series TIGHT / Oracle9 i : The Complete Reference / Loney, Koch / 222521-1 / Front Matter Blind Folio FM:iv About the Authors Kevin Loney is a senior management technical consultant with TUSC (http://www.tusc.com), an Oracle-focused consultancy headquartered in Chicago. He is an expert in the administration, tuning, security, recovery, design, and development of Oracle databases and applications. An Oracle DBA and developer since 1987, he is the primary author of numerous books, including Oracle9i DBA Handbook , Oracle9i Instant Scripts , and Oracle8 Advanced Tuning and Administration , all published by Oracle Press. He is a frequent presenter at local and international Oracle user groups. George Koch is a leading authority on relational database applications. A popular speaker and widely published author, he is also the creator of THESIS, the securities trading, accounting, and portfolio management system that was the first major commercial applications product in the world to employ a relational database (Oracle) and provide English language querying to its users. He is a former senior vice president of Oracle Corporation. P:\010Comp\Oracle8\521-1\CD\Ventura\book.vp Friday, July 19, 2002 4:10:31 PM Color profile: Generic CMYK printer profile Composite Default screen ORACLE Series TIGHT / Oracle9 i : The Complete Reference / Loney, Koch / 222521-1 / Chapter 55 Blind Folio 55:v v Contents At a Glance PART I Critical Database Concepts 1 Sharing Knowledge and Success . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 2 The Dangers in a Relational Database . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15 3 The Basic Parts of Speech in SQL . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41 4 The Basics of Object-Relational Databases . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 69 5 Introduction to Web-Enabled Databases . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 83 PART II SQL and SQL*PLUS 6 Basic SQL*PLUS Reports and Commands . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 91 7 Getting Text Information and Changing It . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 113 8 Playing the Numbers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 141 9 Dates: Then, Now, and the Difference . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 165 10 Conversion and Transformation Functions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 193 11 Grouping Things Together . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 205 12 When One Query Depends upon Another . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 219 13 Some Complex Possibilities . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 237 14 Building a Report in SQL*PLUS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 255 15 Changing Data: insert, update, merge, and delete . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 279 16 Advanced Use of Functions and Variables . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 297 17 DECODE and CASE: if, then, and else in SQL . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 311 18 Creating, Dropping, and Altering Tables and Views . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 325 19 By What Authority? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 355 20 Changing the Oracle Surroundings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 379 P:\010Comp\Oracle8\521-1\CD\Ventura\book.vp Friday, July 19, 2002 4:10:32 PM Color profile: Generic CMYK printer profile Composite Default screen vi Oracle9i: The Complete Reference ORACLE Series TIGHT / Oracle9 i : The Complete Reference / Loney, Koch / 222521-1 / Front Matter Blind Folio FM:vi 21 Using SQL*Loader to Load Data . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 393 22 Accessing Remote Data . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 409 23 Using Materialized Views . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 423 24 Using Oracle Text for Text Searches . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 447 25 Using External Tables . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 465 26 Using Flashback Queries . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 479 PART III PL/SQL 27 An Introduction to PL/SQL . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 489 28 Triggers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 509 29 Procedures, Functions, and Packages . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 529 PART IV Object-Relational Databases 30 Implementing Types, Object Views, and Methods . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 551 31 Collectors (Nested Tables and Varying Arrays) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 567 32 Using Large Objects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 581 33 Advanced Object-Oriented Concepts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 607 PART V Java in Oracle 34 An Introduction to Java . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 627 35 JDBC and SQLJ Programming . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 645 36 Java Stored Procedures . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 663 PART VI Hitchhiker’s Guides 37 The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Oracle9i Data Dictionary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 673 38 The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Oracle Optimizer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 721 39 The Hitchhiker’s Guide to Oracle9iAS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 769 40 The Hitchhiker’s Guide to Database Administration . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 791 41 The Hitchhiker’s Guide to XML in Oracle . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 827 PART VII Alphabetical Reference Alphabetical Reference . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 843 P:\010Comp\Oracle8\521-1\CD\Ventura\book.vp Friday, July 19, 2002 4:10:32 PM Color profile: Generic CMYK printer profile Composite Default screen ORACLE Series TIGHT / Oracle9 i : The Complete Reference / Loney, Koch / 222521-1 / Front Matter Blind Folio FM:vii Acknowledgments T his book is dedicated to my family, who have allowed me the time to write it. Thank you for your patience and support and love. Beyond that, this book is dedicated to the memory of two people: Stephen Jay Gould and Matthew Horning. Stephen Jay Gould inspired me to be a technical writer—his steady growth as a writer and his clarity of thought and expression made me believe this kind of writing was a possibility. He passed away as this book was being finished, and the world is poorer for his passing. Matthew Horning was an Oracle DBA I worked with for several weeks during the summer of 2001 on the upper floors of #1 World Trade Center in New York City. He had the misfortune of being in the office early on 9/11. His coworkers were inspiring to work with during the recovery efforts that followed. In his obituary, Matt’s family asked that donations in his memory be given to Heifer International (http://www.heifer.org). If an act of compassion can come out of such destruction, then there may always be hope. As Gould noted, “Ordinary kindness trumps paroxysmal evil by at least a million events to one.” This book is the product of many hands, and countless hours from many people. My thanks go out to all those who helped, whether through their comments, feedback, edits, or suggestions. For additional information about the book, see the publisher’s site (http://www.osborne.com) and my site (http://www.kevinloney.com). Additional articles and presentations can be found on the company site at http://www.tusc.com. Thanks to all of my colleagues at TUSC: ■ To the contributors and reviewers there, including Brad Brown, Jay Urban, and Mike Holder. ■ To the exemplary management, including Jake Van der Vort, Rich Niemiec, Joe Trezzo, Brad Brown, and others. It’s a delight to work with an executive team who understands the requirements of this kind of undertaking and who shares a commitment to professional altruism. Thanks to the rest of the management team there who actively pursue the professional traits TUSC values. ■ To my peers at TUSC, including Mike Ault, Bill Callahan, Patrick Callahan, Holly Clawson, Judy Corley, Mark Greenhalgh, Andy Hamilton, Mike Killough, Allen Peterson, Randy Swanson, Bob Taylor, Bob Yingst, and many others for their insights and contributions. vii P:\010Comp\Oracle8\521-1\CD\Ventura\book.vp Friday, July 19, 2002 4:10:32 PM Color profile: Generic CMYK printer profile Composite Default screen Special thanks to Bob Bryla, who served as technical editor for this edition. His thoroughness, corrections, and suggestions were greatly appreciated. Imagine being a technical editor on a 1400 page book covering such a range of content and you can begin to appreciate Bob’s task— then do it while working on my schedule! Thanks to my colleagues and friends, including Eyal Aronoff, John Beresniewicz, Steve Bobrowski, Rachel Carmichael, Steven Feuerstein, Mike McDonnell, Marlene Theriault, Mike Janesch, Craig Warman, and Vinny Smith. This book has benefited from the knowledge they have shared, and I have benefited from their friendship and guidance. Thanks to the folks at McGraw-Hill/Osborne who guided this product through its stages: Scott Rogers, LeeAnn Pickrell, Athena Honore, Lisa McClain, and Jeremy Judson, and the others at Osborne with whom I never directly worked. Thanks also to the Oracle component of Oracle Press. This book would not have been possible without the earlier excellent work of George Koch and Robert Muller. Thanks to the writers and friends along the way: Jerry Gross; Jan Riess; Robert Meissner; Marie Paretti; Br. Declan Kane, CFX; Br. William Griffin, CFX; Chris O’Neill; Cheryl Bittner; Bill Fleming; and Mike Restuccia. Thanks to the First State Oracle User Group board (Pete Silva, Phil Stewart, Earl Shaffer, and Lori Kaupas) for its support (http://www.fsoug.org). Special thanks to Sue, Emily, Rachel, Jane, and the rest of the home team. As always, this has been a joint effort. —Kevin Loney viii Oracle9i: The Complete Reference ORACLE Series TIGHT / Oracle9 i : The Complete Reference / Loney, Koch / 222521-1 / Front Matter Blind Folio FM:viii P:\010Comp\Oracle8\521-1\CD\Ventura\book.vp Friday, July 19, 2002 4:10:32 PM Color profile: Generic CMYK printer profile Composite Default screen ORACLE Series TIGHT / Oracle9 i : The Complete Reference / Loney, Koch / 222521-1 / Front Matter Blind Folio FM:ix Preface The Intriguing History of This Book I first encountered Oracle in 1982, in the process of evaluating database management systems for a major commercial application that my company was preparing to design and build. At its conclusion, our evaluation was characterized by ComputerWorld as the single-most “grueling” study of DBMSs that had ever been conducted. The study was so tough on the vendors whose products we examined that word of it made the press as far away as New Zealand and publications as far afield as the Christian Science Monitor . We began the study with 108 candidate companies, then narrowed the field to sixteen finalists, including most of the major database vendors of the time, and all types of databases: network, hierarchical, relational, and others. After the rigorous final round of questions, two of the major vendors participating asked that the results of the study of their products never be published. A salesman from a third vendor quit his job at the end of one of the sessions. We knew how to ask tough questions. Oracle, known then as Relational Software, Inc., had fewer than 25 employees at the time, and only a few major accounts. Nevertheless, when the study was completed, we announced Oracle as the winner. We declared that Oracle was technically the best product on the market, and that the management team at RSI looked capable enough to carry the company forward successfully. Our radical proclamation was made at a time when few people even knew what the term relational meant, and those who did had very few positive things to say about it. Many IS executives loudly criticized our conclusions and predicted that Oracle and the relational database would go nowhere. Oracle today is the largest database company, and the second largest software company in the world. The relational database is now the world standard. Koch Systems Corporation, the company I owned and ran at the time, became Oracle’s first Valued Added Reseller. We developed the world’s first major commercial relational application, a securities trading and accounting system called THESIS. This product was used by major banks and corporations to manage their investment portfolios. Even IBM bought THESIS, and it allowed Oracle to be installed at IBM headquarters in spite of vigorous internal opposition. After all, IBM was the leading database company at the time, with IMS and DB2 as their flagship products. Oracle was continuing to refine its young product, to understand the kinds of features and functionality that would make it productive and useful in the business world, and our development efforts at Koch Systems contributed to that refinement. Some of Oracle’s features were the direct ix P:\010Comp\Oracle8\521-1\CD\Ventura\book.vp Friday, July 19, 2002 4:10:32 PM Color profile: Generic CMYK printer profile Composite Default screen results of requests that we made of Oracle’s developers, and our outspoken advocacy of an end-user bias in application design and naming conventions has influenced a generation of programmers who learned Oracle in our shop or read articles which we published. All of this intimate involvement with the development and use of Oracle led us to an early and unmatched expertise with the product and its capabilities. Since I have always loved sharing discoveries and knowledge—to help shorten the learning time necessary with new technologies and ideas, and save others the cost of making the same mistakes I did—I decided to turn what we’d learned into a book. Oracle: The Complete Reference was conceived in 1988 to pull together all of the fundamental commands and techniques used across the Oracle product line, as well as give solid guidance in how to develop applications using Oracle and SQL. Part I of the book was aimed both at developers and end-users, so that they could share a common language and understanding during the application development process: developers and end users working side by side—a wild concept when the book was first conceived. Linda Allen, a respected literary agent in San Francisco, introduced me to Liz Fisher, then the editor at McGraw-Hill/Osborne. Liz liked the idea very much. Contracts were drawn, and the first edition was scheduled to be released in 1989. But a now-departed senior executive at McGraw-Hill heard of the project and instantly canceled its development, pronouncing that Oracle is a flash in the pan. It is going nowhere. A year later, when Oracle Corporation had again doubled in size and the senior executive was gone, the effort was restarted, and the first edition finally arrived in 1990. Almost immediately, it became the No. 1 book in its category, a position it has maintained for over a decade. In July of 1990, I was hired by Oracle to run its Applications Division. I became senior vice president of the company and guided the division (with a lot of talented help) to worldwide success. While at Oracle, I also introduced McGraw-Hill/Osborne to Oracle senior management, and after opposition from an Oracle vice president who didn’t see any value in the idea (he’s no longer with Oracle), Oracle Press was born. Oracle Press is now the leading publisher of Oracle-based reference manuals in the world. In 1992, Bob Muller, a former developer at both Koch Systems and Oracle, took over responsibilities for technical updates to the book, as my duties at Oracle precluded any more than editorial review of changes. This produced Oracle7: The Complete Reference . This was Bob’s first published book, and he has since gone on to write several other popular books on development and database design. In 1994, I left Oracle to fulfill a long-held desire—full time ministry—and today I’m the pastor of Church of the Resurrection (http://www.resurrection.org) in West Chicago, Illinois. I continue to write in publications as diverse as the Wall Street Journal and Christianity Today , and I’ve recently published a book in England, The Country Parson’s Advice to His Parishioner , from Monarch Books. I also sit on the board of directors of Apropos, a leading call center applications company, but I no longer work in Oracle application development. Also in 1994, Kevin Loney, a highly respected independent Oracle consultant and author (http://www.kevinloney.com), took over the updating and rewriting responsibilities for the third edition of the book, and has continued ever since. He has contributed major new sections (such as the Hitchhiker’s Guides, the PL/SQL, Java, and ORDBMS sections, among others), and fully integrated new Oracle product features into all sections of the book. He has also integrated many readers’ comments into the structure and content of the book, making its current form the product of both its readers and its authors. Those efforts have allowed Oracle: The Complete Reference to x Oracle9i: The Complete Reference ORACLE Series TIGHT / Oracle9 i : The Complete Reference / Loney, Koch / 222521-1 / Front Matter Blind Folio FM:x P:\010Comp\Oracle8\521-1\CD\Ventura\book.vp Friday, July 19, 2002 4:10:33 PM Color profile: Generic CMYK printer profile Composite Default screen [...]... Look at the two tables, figure it out, and then resume reading this How did you solve it? You found just one AUSTRALIA entry, under the Country column, in the LOCATION table Next to it, in the City column of the same row, was the name of the city, SYDNEY You took this name, SYDNEY, and then looked for it in the City column of the WEATHER table When you found it, you moved across the row and found the Temperature,... electronic edition of Oracle9i: The Complete Reference Now, with this electronic version, you can easily store all of the valuable information contained in the book on your PC while the print version of the book remains in your office or home The CD also contains the table creation statements and row insertions for all of the tables used in this book For anyone learning Oracle, having these tables available... Oracle’s XML implementation These guides provide an overview of areas that developers may need to use in their application development and administration Part VII, the “Alphabetical Reference, ” is the complete reference for the Oracle server—a book unto itself Reading the introductory pages to this reference will make its use much more effective and understandable This section contains references for most... column, look over to the Country column in the same row, and see the country’s name These are two completely separate and independent tables Each contains its own information in columns and rows They have one significant thing in common: the City column For each city name in the WEATHER table, there is an identical city name in the LOCATION table For instance, what is the current temperature, humidity, and... extensive cross-referencing of topics The reference is intended for use by both developers and users of Oracle but assumes some familiarity with the products To make the most productive use of any of the entries, it would be worthwhile to read the first four pages of the reference These explain in greater detail what is and is not included and how to read the entries The CD that accompanies this book contains... searching the columns on the newspaper page Figure 1-7 is an index to a newspaper What’s in section F? If you read the paper from front to back, in what order would you read the articles? The answers to these questions are obtainable via simple English queries in Oracle You will learn how to do all of these queries, and even build the tables to store the information, in the course of using this reference. .. thoroughgoing and voluminous, currently spanning multiple CDs Oracle9i: The Complete Reference is the first entity that has gathered all of the major Oracle definitions, commands, functions, features, and products together in a single, massive core reference one volume that every Oracle user and developer can keep handy on his or her desk The audience for this book will usually fall into one of three... INDIA SPAIN ENGLAND RUSSIA FRANCE ITALY CHINA GREECE AUSTRALIA JAPAN WEATHER and LOCATION tables Even though the tables are independent, you can easily see that they are related The city name in one table is related to the city name in the other (see Figure 1-5) This relationship is the basis for the name relational database This is the basic idea of a relational database (sometimes called a relational... xiv Series TIGHT / Oracle9i: The Complete Reference / Loney, Koch / 222521-1 / Front Matter Blind Folio FM:xiv Oracle9i: The Complete Reference s An experienced Oracle developer As with any product of great breadth and sophistication, there are important issues about which little, if anything, has been published Knowledge comes through long experience, but is often not transferred to others This book... college graduates They’ve learned relational or object-oriented theory and design in school and are ready to make their mark More seasoned developers, as a class, haven’t learned the new technology They’re busy supporting and enhancing the technologies they know, which support their companies’ current information systems The result is that inexperienced developers tend to end up on the relational projects, . Oracle9 i : The Complete Reference / Loney, Koch / 222521-1 / Front Matter Blind Folio FM:i Oracle9i: The Complete Reference Kevin Loney George Koch And the Experts at TUSC McGraw- Hill/ Osborne New. form the product of both its readers and its authors. Those efforts have allowed Oracle: The Complete Reference to x Oracle9i: The Complete Reference ORACLE Series TIGHT / Oracle9 i : The Complete. multiple CDs. Oracle9i: The Complete Reference is the first entity that has gathered all of the major Oracle definitions, commands, functions, features, and products together in a single, massive core reference one