About PL/Vision

You will find a number of references to PL/Vision in this book. PL/Vision is a library of PL /SQL packages from RevealNet. PL/Vision was designed and implemented by Steven Feuerstein; it is described in great detail in his second book, Advanced Oracle PL /SQL Programming with Packages ( O'Reilly & Associates, 1996 ) . Several points to keep in mind about PL/Vision:

• You do not need to install PL/Vision in order to use the built-in packages described in this book. Hovever, a number of PL/Vision packages make it easier for you to take advantage of built-in package functionality (including PLVdyn, PLVfile and the p package).

• You do not have to purchase PL/Vision in order to take advantage of at least some of its functionality (certainly anything mentioned in this book). You can download PL/Vision Lite, the companion software for Advanced Oracle PL /SQL Programming with Packages , from http://www.revealnet.com .

• You can also get information about PL/Vision Professional (and download a trial version) from the http://www.revealnet.com web site. PL/Vision Professional is the full-use version of PL/Vision, consisting of more than 50 packages (as of January 1998).