Skip to Main Content
Oracle SQL*Plus: The Definitive Guide
book

Oracle SQL*Plus: The Definitive Guide

by Jonathan Gennick
March 1999
Intermediate to advanced content levelIntermediate to advanced
528 pages
14h 39m
English
O'Reilly Media, Inc.
Content preview from Oracle SQL*Plus: The Definitive Guide

COLUMN

The COLUMN command is used to format report output for columnar reports. Using this command, you can control column width, the column title, the way numbers are displayed, whether or not long values wrap to a new line, and a host of other things. Chapter 3 discusses this command.

COL[UMN] [column_name [ALI[AS] alias|
                      CLE[AR]|
                      FOLD_A[FTER]|
                      FOLD_B[EFORE]|
                      FOR[MAT] format_spec|
                      HEA[DING] heading_text|
                      JUS[TIFY] {LEFT|CENTER|CENTRE|RIGHT}|
                      LIKE source_column_name|
                      NEWL[INE]|
                      NEW_V[ALUE] user_variable|
                      NOPRI[NT]|
                      PRI[NT]|
                      NUL[L] null_text|
                      OLD_V[ALUE] user_variable|
                      ON|
                      OFF|
                      TRU[NCATED]|
                      WOR[D_WRAPPED]|
                      WRA[PPED]...]]

where:

COL[UMN]

May be abbreviated to COL. Issuing the COLUMN command with no parameters gets you a list of all current column formats.

column_name

Is the name of the column you are formatting. If it is a computed column, the expression is the name. If your SELECT statement aliases the column, you must use that alias name here. Issuing the command COLUMN column_name with no further parameters causes SQL*Plus to display the current format for that column.

ALI[AS] alias

May be abbreviated ALI. ALIAS allows you to specify an alternate name for this column that is meaningful to SQL*Plus. Do not confuse this with the column alias in a SELECT statement.

alias

Is an alternate name for the column that may be used in BREAK commands, COMPUTE commands, and other COLUMN commands.

CLE[AR]

May be abbreviated to CLE. CLEAR erases any format settings for the column in question. This puts ...

Become an O’Reilly member and get unlimited access to this title plus top books and audiobooks from O’Reilly and nearly 200 top publishers, thousands of courses curated by job role, 150+ live events each month,
and much more.
Start your free trial

You might also like

Oracle SQL*Plus: The Definitive Guide, 2nd Edition

Oracle SQL*Plus: The Definitive Guide, 2nd Edition

Jonathan Gennick
Oracle PL/SQL Programming, Third Edition

Oracle PL/SQL Programming, Third Edition

Steven Feuerstein, Bill Pribyl
Oracle SQL

Oracle SQL

Dan Hotka

Publisher Resources

ISBN: 1565925785Supplemental ContentCatalog PageErrata