Creating PL/SQL Blocks
Copyright 2007, Oracle. All rights reserved.
Creating PL/SQL Blocks
What Will I Learn?
In this lesson, you will learn to: Describe the structure of a PL/SQL block Identify the different types of PL/SQL blocks Identify PL/SQL programming environments Create and execute an anonymous PL/SQL block Output messages in PL/SQL
Copyright 2007, Oracle. All rights reserved.
Creating PL/SQL Blocks
Why Learn It?
This lesson introduces the PL/SQL block structure, the basic unit in PL/SQL. All PL/SQL programs are comprised of blocks, so you will be using blocks a lot! You will learn the structure of a PL/SQL block and create one kind of block: an anonymous block. After learning about the different environments you can use to develop your PL/SQL programs, you will also begin coding PL/SQL in the Application Express development environment.
Copyright 2007, Oracle. All rights reserved.
Creating PL/SQL Blocks
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PL/SQL Block Structure A PL/SQL block consists of three sections:
Declarative (optional): The declarative section begins with the keyword DECLARE and ends when your executable section starts. Executable (mandatory): The executable section begins with the keyword BEGIN and ends with END. Observe that END is terminated with a semicolon. The executable section of a PL/SQL block can in turn include any number of nested PL/SQL blocks. Exception handling (optional): The exception section is nested within the executable section. This section begins with the keyword EXCEPTION.
Copyright 2007, Oracle. All rights reserved.
Creating PL/SQL Blocks
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PL/SQL Block Structure (continued) DECLARE (Optional) Variables, cursors, user-defined exceptions BEGIN (Mandatory) - SQL statements - PL/SQL statements EXCEPTION (Optional) Actions to perform when errors occur END; (Mandatory) In a PL/SQL block, the keywords DECLARE, BEGIN, and EXCEPTION are not terminated by a semicolon. However, the keyword END, all SQL statements, and PL/SQL statements must be terminated with a semicolon.
Copyright 2007, Oracle. All rights reserved.
Creating PL/SQL Blocks
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PL/SQL Block Structure (continued)
Section Declarative (DECLARE) Description Contains declarations of all variables, constants, cursors, and user-defined exceptions that are referenced in the executable and exception sections. Executable (BEGIN END;) Contains SQL statements to retrieve data from the database and PL/SQL statements to manipulate data in the block. Must contain at least one statement. Exception (EXCEPTION) Specifies the actions to perform when errors and abnormal conditions arise in the executable section.
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Inclusion Optional
Mandatory
Optional
Creating PL/SQL Blocks
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The PL/SQL Compiler Every program written in a high-level programming language (C, Java, PL/SQL and so on) must be checked and translated into binary code (ones and zeros) before it can execute. The software that does this checking and translation is called a compiler. The PL/SQL compiler executes automatically when needed. It checks not only that every word is spelled correctly, but also that any referenced database objects (such as tables) exist, and that the user has the necessary privileges on them.
Copyright 2007, Oracle. All rights reserved.
Creating PL/SQL Blocks
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Block Types A PL/SQL program comprises one or more blocks. These blocks can be entirely separate or nested within another. There are three types of blocks that can make up a PL/SQL program. They are: Anonymous blocks Procedures Functions
Subprograms
Copyright 2007, Oracle. All rights reserved.
Creating PL/SQL Blocks
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Anonymous Blocks Anonymous blocks: Unnamed blocks Not stored in the database Declared inline at the point in an application where they are executed Compiled each time the application is executed Passed to the PL/SQL engine for execution at run time We cannot invoke or call an anonymous block because they do not have names and do not exist after they are executed
Copyright 2007, Oracle. All rights reserved.
[DECLARE]
BEGIN --statements [EXCEPTION] END;
Creating PL/SQL Blocks
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Examples of Anonymous Blocks 1. No Declaration or exception sections, execution only
BEGIN DBMS_OUTPUT.PUT_LINE('PL/SQL is easy!'); END;
2. Declaration and execution sections, but no exception section
DECLARE v_date DATE := SYSDATE; BEGIN DBMS_OUTPUT.PUT_LINE(v_date); END;
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Creating PL/SQL Blocks
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Examples of Anonymous Blocks 3. Declaration and exception sections
DECLARE v_country_name VARCHAR2(15); v_location VARCHAR2(15); BEGIN SELECT country_name, location INTO v_country_name, v_location FROM countries WHERE country_id=?; DBMS_OUTPUT.PUT_LINE ('The country name is: '||v_country_name)||' and is located in '||v_location||'.') ; EXCEPTION WHEN TOO_MANY_ROWS THEN DBMS_OUTPUT.PUT_LINE (' Your select statement retrieved multiple rows. Consider using a cursor.'); END;
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Creating PL/SQL Blocks
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Subprograms Subprograms: Are named PL/SQL blocks Are stored in the database Can be invoked whenever you want to depending on your application Can be declared as procedures or as functions
Procedure: performs an action Function: computes and returns a value
PROCEDURE name IS --variable declaration(s) BEGIN --statements [EXCEPTION] END;
FUNCTION name RETURN datatype --variable declaration(s) IS BEGIN --statements RETURN value; [EXCEPTION] END;
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Creating PL/SQL Blocks
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Examples of Subprograms: 1. Procedure to print the current date
CREATE PROCEDURE print_date IS v_date VARCHAR2(30); BEGIN SELECT TO_CHAR(SYSDATE,'Mon DD, YYYY') INTO v_date FROM DUAL; DBMS_OUTPUT.PUT_LINE(v_date); END;
2. Function to return the number of characters in a string
CREATE FUNCTION num_characters (p_string IN VARCHAR2) RETURN INTEGER IS v_num_characters INTEGER; BEGIN SELECT LENGTH(p_string) INTO v_num_characters FROM DUAL; RETURN v_num_characters; END;
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Creating PL/SQL Blocks
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Program Constructs The following table outlines a variety of different PL/SQL program constructs that use the basic PL/SQL block. The constructs are available based on the environment in which they are executed.
Tools Constructs Anonymous blocks Application procedures or functions Application packages Application triggers Object types
Database Server Constructs Stored procedures or functions Stored packages Database triggers Object types
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Creating PL/SQL Blocks
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PL/SQL Programming Environments There are many tools that provide an environment for developing PL/SQL code. Oracle provides several tools that can be used to write PL/SQL code. Some of the Oracle development tools are:
SQL*Workshop SQL*Plus Jdeveloper & SQL Developer iSQL*Plus A component of Application Express A command-line application GUI integrated development environments (IDEs) A browser based development environment
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Creating PL/SQL Blocks
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PL/SQL Programming Environments: iSQL*Plus iSQL*Plus: iSQL*Plus is a browser-based interface to SQL*Plus. You can connect to a local or remote database by using iSQL*Plus. It allows you to perform all the operations that you can perform with the command-line version of SQL*Plus.
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Creating PL/SQL Blocks
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PL/SQL Programming Environments: Oracle JDeveloper JDeveloper is a Windows-based application. Using JDeveloper you can create, edit, test, and debug PL/SQL. The JDeveloper Code Editor assists in PL/SQL code development by offering: Different colors for syntactical components of the PL/SQL language Features to locate procedures and functions in supplied packages
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Edit
Run
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Creating PL/SQL Blocks
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PL/SQL Programming Environments: Oracle Application Express Oracle Application Express is a browser-based web application environment that offers a SQL Workshop component.
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Creating PL/SQL Blocks
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Developing with SQL Workshop When you log in to Oracle Application Express, and choose SQL Workshop, you can choose to use the SQL Commands option to use the SQL command line editor or you can choose the SQL Scripts option to work within the Script Editor.
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Creating PL/SQL Blocks
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SQL Commands You can use SQL Commands to enter and run a single SQL statement or a single PL/SQL block. A SQL script can contain one or more SQL statements and/or PL/SQL blocks. Use SQL Scripts to enter and run multi-statement scripts.
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Creating PL/SQL Blocks
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Using DBMS_OUTPUT.PUT_LINE Look at this simple PL/SQL block and its output:
How can we display the result ?
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Creating PL/SQL Blocks
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Using DBMS_OUTPUT.PUT_LINE (continued) Lets add a call to DBMS_OUTPUT.PUT_LINE:
Now we can see the result !
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Creating PL/SQL Blocks
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Using DBMS_OUTPUT.PUT_LINE (continued) DBMS_OUTPUT.PUT_LINE allows us to display results so that we can check that our block is working correctly. It allows us to display one character string at a time, although this can be concatenated. Here are two more examples:
DECLARE v_emp_count NUMBER; BEGIN DBMS_OUTPUT.PUT_LINE('PL/SQL is easy so far!'); SELECT COUNT(*) INTO v_emp_count FROM employees; DBMS_OUTPUT.PUT_LINE(There are ||v_emp_count|| rows in the employees table); END;
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Creating PL/SQL Blocks
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Terminology Key terms used in this lesson include:
Anonymous PL/SQL block Compiler Subprograms Procedures Functions
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Creating PL/SQL Blocks
Summary
In this lesson, you learned to: Describe the structure of a PL/SQL block Identify the different types of PL/SQL blocks Identify PL/SQL programming environments Create and execute an anonymous PL/SQL block Output messages in PL/SQL
Copyright 2007, Oracle. All rights reserved.
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Creating PL/SQL Blocks
Try It/Solve It
The exercises in this lesson cover the following topics: Describing the structure of a PL/SQL block Identifying the block types of PL/SQL Identifying PL/SQL programming environments Creating and executing an anonymous PL/SQL block Outputting messages in PL/SQL
Copyright 2007, Oracle. All rights reserved.
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