December 2002
Intermediate to advanced
928 pages
85h 29m
English
Many SQL*Plus-specific commands take string values as parameters. Simple strings containing no spaces or punctuation characters may be entered without quotes. Here’s an example:
COLUMN employee_id HEADING emp_id
Generally, it’s safer to use quoted strings. Either single or double quotes may be used. For example:
COLUMN employee_id HEADING 'Emp #' COLUMN employee_id HEADING "Emp #"
To embed quotes in a string, either double them or use a different enclosing quote. The following two commands have equivalent results:
COLUMN employee_id HEADING '''Emp #''' COLUMN employee_id HEADING "'Emp #'"
The single exception to these rules is the PROMPT command. All quotes used in a PROMPT command will appear in the output.