Structure of This Book

This book is separated into six parts as follows:

Part I: Working With Packages

This part introduces packages, the most important construct in PL/SQL for building reusable code and employing object-oriented design techniques. Chapter 1, PL/SQL Packages describes how and when you should create packages and explains why PL/SQL developers should learn to center their entire development process around packages Chapter 2, Best Practices for Packages presents my tried-and-true "best practices" for building packages. Chapter 3, The PL/SQL Development Spiral puts packages in the context of overall PL/SQL development by providing a tutorial on solving a typical problem in PL/SQL .

Part II: PL/Vision Overview

Chapter 4, Getting Started with PL/Vision gets you started with PL/Vision, a collection of PL/SQL packages and supporting SQL*Plus scripts that can radically change the way you develop applications with the PL/SQL language. Chapter 5, PL/Vision Package Specifications provides a brief summary of all of the specifications for the PL/Vision packages, and is marked with a thumb-tab for quick reference.

Part III: Building Block Packages

Chapters 6 through 13 describe the building block packages of PL/Vision; these are low-level packages that you can use to enhance your development -- for example, string parsers, a list manager, and an interface to PL/SQL tables.

Part IV: Developer Utility Packages

Chapters 14 through 18 describe the developer utilities of PL/Vision; these are programs that improve your PL/SQL development environment -- for example, a code generator, a powerful substitute for SHOW ERORS, and an online help delivery mechanism.

Part V: PL/Vision Plug-and-Play Packages

Chapters 19 through 22 describe the plug-and-play components of PL/Vision; these are pieces of code that can be used as is in your own applications -- for example, a high-level exception handler mechanism and a generic, reusable logging mechanism.

Part VI: Testing Your Knowledge

The appendix provides a set of exercises (and their solutions) to test your knowledge of the PL/SQL language.

Conventions Used in This Book

The following conventions are used in this book:

Italic

is used for file and directory names.

Bold

is used in headers.

Constant width

is used for code examples and for variable, procedure, function, and package names in the text, as well as executable SQL scripts.

UPPERCASE

in code examples, indicates PL/SQL keywords.

lowercase

in code examples, indicates user-defined items such as variables and parameters.

punctuation

in code examples, enter exactly as shown.

indentation

in code examples, helps to show structure but is not required.

.

In code examples and related discussions, a dot qualifies a reference by separating an object name from a component name. For example, dot notation is used to specify declarations within a package (e.g., PLVvu.code ).

In general, all of the discussions and examples in this book apply regardless of the machine and/or operating system you are using. In those few cases where a feature is in any way system-dependent, I note that in the text.