This book is divided into four parts:
This part of the book contains fundamental information about the Oracle database, which applies no matter what language or tools you are using.
Chapter 1, provides an overview of the architecture and underlying components of the Oracle database and briefly describes the various Oracle editions.
Chapter 2, describes the initialization parameters (INIT.ORA and/or SPFILE parameters) that allow you to configure your Oracle database.
Chapter 3, describes Oracle’s multiversion read consistency (MVRC) scheme and provides a brief discussion of transactions, locks, and other concurrency concepts.
Chapter 4, briefly describes authentication, profiles, privileges, roles, and auditing and specifies the syntax for controlling security in an Oracle database.
Chapter 5, briefly describes Oracle networking concepts and summarizes the syntax of the configuration files you must define in order to use a network with Oracle; these files include TNSNAMES.ORA, SQLNET.ORA, LISTENER.ORA, LDAP.ORA, NAMES.ORA, and CMAN.ORA.
Chapter 6, summarizes the Oracle data dictionary views that maintain information about the objects and users in an Oracle database; it covers both the static views and the dynamic performance views.
This part of the book focuses on the syntax used to construct SQL statements and functions, PL/SQL programs, and Java interfaces to Oracle.
Chapter 7, summarizes the syntax of Oracle’s version of SQL (Structured Query Language).
Chapter 8, summarizes the syntax of the functions that may be called from SQL and PL/SQL.
Chapter 9, briefly describes the capabilities of Oracle’s procedural language and summarizes the syntax of all statements.
Chapter 10, PL/SQL Packages, lists the header specifications for all of the procedures and functions included in Oracle’s built-in packages, along with parameter descriptions.
Chapter 11, Java and Oracle, provides a summary of the Java interfaces to the Oracle database, including Java drivers available for Oracle, the mapping between Java datatypes and Oracle datatypes, and the syntax for the SQLJ and JDBC interfaces to Oracle
This part of the book summarizes the commands and file specifications for a variety of tools and utilities used to manage and interact with the Oracle database.
Chapter 12, summarizes the commands and formatting elements available with SQL*Plus, the command-line interface to the Oracle database that you use to enter SQL statements and PL/SQL code and execute script files.
Chapter 13, summarizes the commands available with the Export utility (which copies data from the database into a binary file) and the Import utility (which bring data into the Oracle database from a binary file). You can use these utilities to capture both the structures and the data in an Oracle database.
Chapter 14, summarizes the commands available with SQL*Loader, a utility that allows you to load data in standard operating system file formats into an Oracle database and to perform a variety of data manipulation and transformation operations during the load.
Chapter 15, briefly describes Oracle backup and recovery concepts, outlines the procedures you can follow to perform user-managed backup and recovery, and summarizes the commands available with the Recovery Manager (RMAN), the Oracle backup and recovery utility.
Chapter 16, summarizes the features of Enterprise Manager, a graphical user interface console that allows you to manage Oracle databases.
Chapter 17, summarizes the main Oracle tools that help you examine and improve Oracle performance. It describes the SQL optimizers and hints and provides syntax for using the Explain Plan, TKPROF, AUTOTRACE, UTLBSTAT, UTLESTAT, and Statspack optimization tools.
This part of the book contains summary and reference information.
Appendix A, Datatypes, summarizes the Oracle datatypes and conversion rules.
Appendix B, lists the valid expressions, operators, and conditions that can be included in SQL, PL/SQL, and SQL*Plus statements.
Appendix C, lists numeric format elements that can be included in SQL, PL/SQL, and SQL*Plus statements.
Appendix D, lists date format elements that can be included in SQL, PL/SQL, and SQL*Plus statements.
Appendix E, provides a list of books and online resources containing additional information on the topics included in this book.
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