Advanced Oracle PL/SQL Programming with Packages

4.2. PL/Vision Package Bundles

PL/Vision Lite consists of 32 PL/SQL packages. From a conceptual standpoint, the various packages are grouped into three bundles: building blocks, developer utilities, and plug-and-play components. These packages in each of these bundles are summarized in the following sections. Chapter 5, contains a full summary of all package specifications.

Some of the packages listed in the following tables are not described in detail in this book. In cases in which neither the package conception nor its implementation offered any additional insights that would help you build your own packages, I elected to omit the discussion from the book. For more details about these packages (indicated by * in the tables), see the PL/Vision Online Reference on the companion disk (see http://examples.oreilly.com/advoracle).

4.2.1. Building Blocks

The building block packages provide low-level functionality upon which other packages in PL/Vision are built. You can, of course, also use these building blocks to construct your own applications. Examples of building block packages include an interface to PL/SQL tables, string parsers, a file I/O manager, and a message handling mechanism.

Table 4.1. PL/Vision Building Block Packages

Package	Description
p	Offers a feature-rich and minimal-typing substitute for the DBMS_OUTPUT package.
PLV	Top-level package for PL/Vision. Contains ...