Oracle8: The Complete Reference

Kevin Loney (Wilmington, DE) is a veteran Oracle developer and DBA. He is the author of the best-selling Oracle8 DBA Handbook and co-author of Advanced Tuning and Administration and Oracle8i: The Complete Reference. He frequently makes presentations at Oracle conferences and contributes to Oracle Magazine

Part I: Critical Database Concepts. Sharing Knowledge and Success. The Dangers in a Relational Database. Part II: SQL: Going from Begninner to Expert. The Basic Parts of Speech in SQL. The Basics of Object-Relational Databases. Basic SQLPLUS Reports and Commands. Getting Text Information and Changing It. Playing the Numbers. Dates: Then, Now, and the Difference. Conversion and Transformation Functions. Grouping Things Together. When One Query Depends Upon Another. Some Complex Possibilities. Building a Report in SQLPLUS. Changing Data: Insert, Update, and Delete. Advanced Use of Functions and Variables. DECODE - Amazing Power in a Single Word. Creating, Dropping, and Altering Tables and Views. By What Authority? Changing the ORACLE Surroundings. SQLPLUS. Accessing Remote Data. An Introduction to Pl/SQL. Triggers. Procedures. Implementing Types, Object Views, and Methods. Collectors (Nested Tables and Varying Arrays). Using Large Objects (LOBs) in Oracle8. Snapshots. Using ConText for Text Searches. Configuring the ConText Option. Advanced Object-Oriented Concepts in ORACLE8. Part III: The Hitchhiker's Guide to the ORACLE8 Data Dictionary. Part IV: Designing for Productivity. Good Design has a Human touch. Performance and Design. The Ten Commandments of Human Design. The Hitchhiker's Guide to the ORACLE Optimizer. Part V: Alphabetical Reference. Part VI: Appendix. A: Tables Used in This Book.