Errata

The line of code is:

my_string := regexp_replace(my_string, phone_number_pattern, '(\1) \2');

The line of code should be:

my_string := regexp_replace(my_string, phone_number_pattern, '(\1) \2 \3');

The replacement string in the call to REGEXP_REPLACE needs one more matching pattern, in order for the output to match what is shown in the text after the anonymous block

"The output from this code block is:

999-888-7777
The phone number 999-888-7777 is not ours.

The text says: 'The notion of the time interval is yet another feature introduced in
Oracle Database 10g;'
It seems to me it is introduced in Oracle 9i Database.

cursor_name.column_name should be record_name.column_name

Error numbers assigned to CONSTANT variables are not used. I believe the intent was to use the
variable names (instead of hard coding the error numbers) in the subsequent PRAGMA declrations. So
PRAGMA_EXCEPTION_INIT(exc_too_young, -20001); should be PRAGMA_EXCEPTION_INIT(exc_too_young,
en_too_young); and PRAGMA_EXCEPTION_INIT(exc_sal_too_low, -20002); should be
PRAGMA_EXCEPTION_INIT(exc_sal_too_low, en_sal_too_low);

In the file cast.sql there is the following code:

DECLARE
scifi_favorites authors_t
:= authors_t ('Sheri S. Tepper', 'Orson Scott Card', 'Gene Wolfe');
BEGIN
DBMS_OUTPUT.put_line ('I recommend that you read books by:');

FOR rec IN (SELECT column_value favs
FROM TABLE (CAST (scifi_favorites AS names_t))
UNION
SELECT NAME
FROM favorite_authors)
LOOP
DBMS_OUTPUT.put_line (rec.favs);
END LOOP;
END;

with the following explanation from the book (page 187 at the top):
"... I cast the PL/SQL nested table (local and not visible to the SQL engine) as a type of nested table known in the database. ..."
It's talking about the bit of code <CAST (scifi_favorites AS names_t)>, where a authors_t nested table has been casted as a names_t nested table.
But the authors_t type is not local, indeed it was previously created as <CREATE TYPE authors_t AS TABLE OF VARCHAR2 (100);>, hence the pl/sql block works even without casting as follows:

DECLARE
scifi_favorites authors_t
:= authors_t ('Sheri S. Tepper', 'Orson Scott Card', 'Gene Wolfe');
BEGIN
DBMS_OUTPUT.put_line ('I recommend that you read books by:');
FOR rec IN (SELECT column_value favs
FROM TABLE (scifi_favorites)
UNION
SELECT NAME
FROM favorite_authors)
LOOP
DBMS_OUTPUT.put_line (rec.favs);
END LOOP;
END;

The final line of output is listed as:
".....Hi there!....."

This output is for:
DBMS_OUTPUT.PUT_LINE( TRIM(x) );

which is supposed to have a default trim character of the space. If that's the case, then the
output should be:
".....Hithere!....."

The internal representation of the timestamp and timezone should be 2002-02-06 20:00:00:00:00
-0:00, and not => 2002-02-06 20:00:00:00:00 -5:00.

Since this is in UTC time.

Oracle PL/SQL Programming, Fourth Edition by Steven Feuerstein with Bill
Pribyl

(263) The CAST example's second DBMS_OUTPUT function the "a" variable
name needs to be a "b".

Procedure Putline inserts into recently created table logtab (p. 457). However, this
insert does not match the table. Columns machine and program is missing.

The "file on web" points to log.pkg which does exist, but rather uses log81tab and so
on. Here are the missing columns (but this code does not work anyway)
It seems that there is an update of the code in progress and only half of it has made
it all the way.

Either of the code fragments work.

line 27 of the FUNCTION jealousy_level returns a value (level_out) that is not declared in the
function

The "l_transportation" variable is referenced without first being declared.

Limiting Rows Retrieved with BULK COLLECT
For 8i have to use %NOTFOUND as COUNT never gets set to zero.
Guess this is a feature of LIMIT in 8i that was corrected for 9i.

The OF list of the FOR UPDATE may not just for document.

I ran into problems with it. There is an old code in our applicaton to update the
column; it failed to update the column not in the OF list couple of month ago. It
started to work again with the columns being put in the list. It may be an Oracle
bug or config problem. Anyway, there is no harm in putting the columns in the list.

FOR UPDATE OF husband_config.max_proastination_allowed;
->
FOR UPDATE OF hc.max_proastination_allowed;

I think two lines of code in the Execute Immediate example in the above method are in
the wrong order.

The book says:
execute immediate
'select last_name, salary from employee
where department_id = :dept_id'
using 10
into l_last_name, l_salary;

which doesn't work when copied into code. I think it should read:
execute immediate
'select last_name, salary from employee
where department_id = :dept_id'
into l_last_name, l_salary
using 10;

which does.

In line 6 of the SQL, the "AS pet_nt", presumably an alias after the function call, causes Oracle
to tell me that I'm missing a right parenthesis. When I take this alias out of the code, it works
perfectly as written without other modifications.

I'm running against Oracle 10.2.0.1.0, and the error happened both in Toad and in SQL Plus.

The 2 lines in the loop:
EXIT WHEN book_info.bytitle_cur%NOTFOUND;
FETCH book_info.bytitle_cur INTO onebook;
are in the wrong order, they should read:
FETCH book_info.bytitle_cur INTO onebook;
EXIT WHEN book_info.bytitle_cur%NOTFOUND;

The order of the lines inside the loop:
EXIT WHEN ...
FETCH personnel ...
should be changed - first fetch next check if the record was fetched.
The way it currently is the last row fetched by the cursor will be processed twice. See also error
on page 642.

In line 14

l_row := l_array.FIRST;

has to be

l_row := l_employees.FIRST;

Page 999 says about the TREAT function "[TREAT] will return either the downcasted object or NULL - but not an error". That is true if TREAT is used in SQL, but if TREAT is used in PL/SQL and the object is not of the required type, TREAT does indeed raise an error.

See http://download.oracle.com/docs/cd/B28359_01/appdev.111/b28371/adobjbas.htm#i479093

"If p is a person who is not a student, or if p is NULL, TREAT returns NULL in SQL or, in PL/SQL, raises an exception."

Page 999 says about the TREAT function "[TREAT] will return either the downcasted object or NULL - but not an error". That is true if TREAT is used in SQL, but if TREAT is used in PL/SQL and the object is not of the required type, TREAT does indeed raise an error.

See http://download.oracle.com/docs/cd/B28359_01/appdev.111/b28371/adobjbas.htm#i479093

"If p is a person who is not a student, or if p is NULL, TREAT returns NULL in SQL or, in PL/SQL, raises an exception."