Oracle in a Nutshell

Running SQL*Plus

You almost always invoke SQL*Plus by issuing the sqlplus command from your operating system command prompt. On Microsoft Windows systems, use either sqlplus or sqlplusw, depending on whether you want SQL*Plus to run in a command prompt window or in its own window; you also have the option of selecting an icon from the Start menu. Early releases of SQL*Plus on Windows used executable names such as PLUS33 and PLUS80W, depending on the specific release number and on whether the DOS version or the Windows version was to be invoked.

Tip

Beware of passing your password as a command-line argument to SQL*Plus. On Linux and Unix systems, such passwords may be easily visible to other users.

Use the following syntax to invoke SQL*Plus. Note that the -RESTRICT and -MARKUP parameters were new in Oracle8i. -HELP and -VERSION were new in Oracle9i.

SQLPLUS [[-S[ILENT]] [-H[ELP]] [-V[ERSION]] 
        [-R[ESTRICT] level] [L[OGON]]
        [-M[ARKUP] 'markup_options']
        [username[/password][@connect] | / [AS (SYSDBA | SYSOPER)]] | /NOLOG]
        [@scriptfile [arg1 
               arg2 
               arg3...]]] | - | -?

-S[ILENT]

Tells SQL*Plus to run in silent mode, with no startup messages, command prompts, or echoed commands displayed.

-H[ELP]

Causes SQL*Plus to display a short summary of this syntax. Prior to Oracle9i, use sqlplus to get the help summary.

-V[ERSION]

Causes SQL*Plus to display version and copyright information. Prior to Oracle9i, use sqlplus -? to get version and copyright information.

-R[ESTRICT] level

Restricts what the user ...