Name

HELP

Synopsis

The HELP command gets help on SQL*Plus commands, SQL statements, PL/SQL statements, and other topics. HELP is described in Chapter 2.

Syntax

HELP [topic]

Parameters

topic

Is the help topic you want to read about. Most SQL statements, SQL*Plus commands, and PL/SQL statements are valid help topics. There are others as well. Entering HELP INDEX will get you a complete list of valid topics.

Installing the online help

The SQL*Plus HELP command reads from a table named help in the SYSTEM schema of whatever database you are connected to. Thus, the help that you get will be for the version of SQL*Plus that corresponds to your database version and will not necessarily correspond to the version of SQL*Plus you are running.

To load the system help table, do the following:

  1. Make your current working directory $ORACLE_HOME/sqlplus/admin/help.

  2. Run SQL*Plus and connect to your database as the SYSTEM user.

  3. Execute the hlpbld.sql script as follows:

    @hlpbld helpus.sql

    The helpus.sql file loads English language help text. You may need to load help in some other language. Issue an ls command to see what other helpxx.sql files are available.

To drop the help table (and possibly an associated view), should you ever wish to do that, just log in as SYSTEM and run $ORACLE_HOME/sqlplus/admin/help/helpdrop.sql.

Tip

Older releases of Oracle used SQL*Loader to load the help table. For example, for Oracle8i Database, Release 8.1.5, you needed to connect as SYSTEM and run helptbl.sql followed by helpindx.sql ...

Get Oracle SQL*Plus: The Definitive Guide, 2nd Edition now with the O’Reilly learning platform.

O’Reilly members experience books, live events, courses curated by job role, and more from O’Reilly and nearly 200 top publishers.

Start your free trial