Oracle SQL Plus Pocket Reference, 2nd Edition

Interacting with SQL*Plus

This section covers essential information you need to know to interact with SQL*Plus. Here you will learn how to start SQL*Plus, enter commands, delimit strings, and name variables.

Starting SQL*Plus

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 can also select an icon from the Start menu. (Early releases of SQL*Plus on Windows used executable names such as PLUS33 and PLUS80W.)

Warning

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

Syntax for the sqlplus command

The syntax used to invoke SQL*Plus is as follows:

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...]]]

The -RESTRICT and -MARKUP parameters are new in Oracle8i. -HELP and -VERSION are new in Oracle9i. Here are the parameter descriptions:

-S[ILENT]

Tells SQL*Plus to run in silent mode. No startup message is displayed; no command prompt is displayed; no commands are echoed to the screen.

-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 ...