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Oracle in a Nutshell
book

Oracle in a Nutshell

by Rick Greenwald, David C. Kreines
December 2002
Intermediate to advanced content levelIntermediate to advanced
928 pages
85h 29m
English
O'Reilly Media, Inc.
Content preview from Oracle in a Nutshell

Formatting Character Strings

Character strings are formatted using only one element, A, followed by a number specifying the column width in terms of characters. For example:

SQL> COLUMN a FORMAT A40

SQL> SELECT 'An apple a day keeps the doctor away.' A 
   2    FROM dual;

A
----------------------------------------
An apple a day keeps the doctor away.

By default, longer text values are wrapped within the column. You can use the WORD_WRAPPED, WRAPPED, and TRUNCATED parameters of the COLUMN command to control whether and how wrapping occurs. For example:

SQL> COLUMN a FORMAT A18 WORD_WRAPPED

SQL> SELECT 'An apple a day keeps the doctor away.' A 
   2    FROM dual;

A
------------------
An apple a day
keeps the doctor
away.

When text columns wrap to multiple lines, SQL*Plus prints a blank line called a record separator following the record. Use SET RECSEP OFF to prevent that behavior.

When used with the ACCEPT command, a character format defines the maximum number of characters SQL*Plus will accept from the user.

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Publisher Resources

ISBN: 0596003366Errata Page