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

Acknowledgments from the First Edition

The first book that I ever wrote consumed so much energy that I promised myself, and my family, that I would never write another. That promise lasted about two months, when I became consumed with the idea of writing the book you are now reading. I owe a lot to my wife Donna, who understands my drive to write, and who bears a lot more of the load than she should have to while I hole up in my office and work. This book has been my excuse for avoiding just about every household chore imaginable, yet Donna has been very supportive during the endeavor.

My children have contributed to the development of this book. If nothing else, they burst into my office on a daily basis to distract me and to remind me that there are more important things in life than typing on a computer all day. They have also contributed time that I might otherwise have spent with them. My three-year-old son Jeff has grown up watching me write, and must think that all daddies come with a laptop computer attached. To my daughter Jenny, I want to say that I have enjoyed all our late-night excursions together to the local bookstore. I'm glad to see that you have developed the same love for books that I have. You may not always believe it, but you are my pride and joy. I see a lot of myself in you, and I'm glad you ended up as my daughter.

My profound thanks also go out to John-Paul Navarro and David Dreyer, who read each chapter as I wrote it. David Dreyer is an independent consultant residing near Detroit, Michigan, and specializes in PowerBuilder and Oracle development. Dave is one of the most cerebral programmers that I know. Always calm and thoughtful, Dave has added a great deal to this book with his insightful comments. John-Paul Navarro is a systems administrator for Argonne National Laboratories in Argonne, Illinois. John-Paul and I go way back both as friends and colleagues, and I have no end of respect for his technical abilities. He was always willing to discuss technical issues that came up during the writing of this book, and for that I am in his debt.

Thanks to Alison Holloway, product manager for SQL*Plus. "Home" for Alison, and SQL*Plus, too, in case you ever wondered, is in Melbourne, Australia. Alison helped dig up background information and history on SQL*Plus. She provided information on new features being added to SQL*Plus for the upcoming Oracle8i release, and also provided me with an early look at the documentation. In addition to all her other help, Alison did a technical review of the entire book after it was written.

Kirk Bradley, Ken Jacobs, Jay Rossiter, and Richard Rendell, all of Oracle Corporation, provided the historical information about SQL*Plus in Chapter 1. It's always nice to know something of the tools one works with besides just the raw technical details of how they are used. SQL*Plus has been around a long time, and Kirk, Ken, Jay, and Richard have provided some interesting historical tidbits.

A number of technical reviewers read and commented on the final manuscript. These include David Kaufman of TUSC, Dave Kreines, Eric Givler, Alison Holloway, and John-Paul Navarro. I am grateful to each of these people for giving me an unbiased view of the manuscript, pointing out errors, and providing suggestions on ways to improve the clarity of the text. This book is the better for their efforts.

Howard Vanderstow and Paul Cheney, both database administrators with the State of Michigan's Office of Technology Resources, provided some welcome assistance in generating the examples for the HELP command in Chapter 2. They helped me research the location and structure of the database table containing the help text used by SQL*Plus.

I owe a great debt to Brian Gill, who encouraged me when I had the initial idea for this book. Without him, this project might never have gotten off the ground. Thanks to my agent, David Rogelberg of Studio B, who helped me keep up with the business end of this project, and who manages that wonderfully interesting email list that serves so well to distract me from my real work.

Several O'Reilly people contributed to this book in various ways. To Debby Russell of O'Reilly, the editor of this book, I say: "thanks for all the red ink!" Debby is a great editor to work with. She had a lot of good ideas for organizing this book. She was very understanding when I fell behind schedule. She was very encouraging, always drawing attention to things I did well.

Edie Freedman designed the cover, and is responsible for that wonderful looking moving leaf insect on the front. Steve Abrams helped in various ways during the development of the book. Many thanks! Rob Romano did a great job with the figures. Ellie Maden pulled everything together and saw this book through the production process.