Learning Oracle PL/SQL

Glossary

||

1. PL/SQL's concatenate operator. It returns the string that results from joining the strings on the lefthand and righthand sides of the operator. For example, "Hello, " || "world!" returns "Hello, world!".

2. In this book, you may see this symbol used inside comments as follows:

/* This is a comment that goes on for || several lines; we want to use
|| something to indicate that we are 
|| not writing source code.
*/

:=

PL/SQL's assignment operator. Copies whatever is on the righthand side (constant or expression) into the variable on the lefthand side.

;

PL/SQL's "terminator" symbol, found at the end of every declaration and every statement. Functionally similar to a period at the end of an English sentence.

abstraction

"Abstraction, as a process, denotes the extracting of the essential details about an item, or a group of items, while ignoring the inessential details. Abstraction, as an entity, denotes a model, a view, or some other focused representation for an actual item," as defined by Edward V. Berard in his paper "Abstraction, Encapsulation, and Information Hiding" (http://www.itmweb.com/essay550.htm).

Ahmed, Jim

A really nice fellow who helped me start my Oracle programming career. In 1991, soon after I began consulting independently, Jim helped get me a project where I got to use a lot of PL/SQL. Jim died of heart disease in 1999, but his company, MI Systems (http://www.misys-inc.com), is still in his family.

actual parameter

A value, ...