Oracle PL/SQL Programming, Second Edition
Corrections and Amplifications
| As much as we try to make everything perfect, yes, there are some bloopers
in this 950-page tome.
This is a list of the problems that we or others have discovered.
If you find problems with the book, email
it to us, and, in addition to our undying gratitude, we will print
your name here along with the correction.
--Steven Feuerstein and Bill Pribyl
|
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Chapter 6: Database Interaction and Cursors
The text should be changed as follows:- Sometimes you will not explicitly
Chapter 4: Tips for Creating and Using Variables
On page 137, the comment within the code segment on this page ends with '*?' instead of '*/'.Thanks again to Kim Heckler.
Appendix C: Built-In Packages
Appendix C contains inaccurate information about the DBMS_AQ package. Many aspects of Oracle Advanced Queuing changed between final beta and production release of Oracle8. This page contains an up-to-date summary of Oracle AQ and documentation of the packaged program headers.Chapter 8: Exception Handlers
On page 265, the source code for the delete_company procedure contains the declaration of a variable that is not used in the body. Delete the following line from the code:- error_info VARCHAR2 (30) -- Info extracted from error_msg
On page 268, in a discussion of what happens when you call RAISE_APPLICATION_ERROR, the text states that Execution of the current PL/SQL block halts immediately, and all effects of the program are rolled back. The following text is a more accurate description of what really happens:
- Execution of the current PL/SQL block halts immediately, and any changes
made to OUT or IN OUT arguments (if present) will be reversed. Changes
made to global data structures, such as packaged variables, and to database
objects (by executing an INSERT, UPDATE or DELETE) will not be rolled back.
You must execute an explicit ROLLBACK in your exception section to reverse
the effect of DML operations.
Chapter 18 & Chapter 19
Synonyms
On page 614 and page 688, a sidebar states that synonyms are disallowed for user-defined types. While that was true in a pre-release version of Oracle8, it is not true in the production release (8.0.3 and later).- CREATE SYNONYM foo_t FOR Foo_t; --
legal in 8.0.3 and later
Chapter 7: Loops
On page 220, in a paragraph regarding the use of the keyword REVERSE, the second sentence should be revised as follows:- If the first number is
On page 231, there is a discussion of "Scope with labels" which unfortunately uses a WHILE loop as the outer loop as the outer loop (instead of a FOR loop). This causes most of the text surrounding the example to be incorrect.
<<year_loop>>should read:
WHILE date_number <= 1995 --this is wrong
LOOP
...
<<year_loop>>Thanks to Richard Bolz for catching this one!
FOR date_number IN 1994 .. 1999
LOOP
...
Chapter 18: Object Types
On pages 641-2, in Table 18-4, the SQL WHERE clauses have incorrect capitalization of the literal string for the Foo_t user-defined type name. All user-defined type names are, by default, stored in upper case in the data dictionary. That is, instead of:WHERE type_name = 'FOO_t' --wrong...the text should in fact read:
WHERE type_name = 'FOO_T'
Also on page 641, in Table 18-4, the last row at the bottom of the page refers to a column in user_tables that existed in Oracle 8.0.2 but is not present in 8.0.3.
SELECT table_nameIn fact, Oracle removed all "object tables" -- that is, tables which are defined on object types -- from the user_tables view. A new data dictionary view, user_object_tables, contains information about object tables. So the query we were attempting should be expressed as follows:
FROM user_tables
WHERE table_type = 'FOO_T'; -- invalid
SELECT table_name
FROM user_object_tables
WHERE table_type = 'FOO_T';
Chapter 5: Conditional and Sequential Control
On page 144, the IF-ELSIF example at the bottom of the page has two typographical errors. First is an extraneous parenthesis; also, the OR in the second ELSIF should be an AND.IFA big thank-you goes to Arthur Volbert for catching this error!(order_date > SYSDATE AND order_total >= min_order_total
THEN
fill_order (order_id, 'HIGH PRIORITY');ELSIF order_date < SYSDATE OR order_date = SYSDATE
THEN
fill_order (order_id, 'LOW PRIORITY');ELSIF order_date <= SYSDATE
ORAND order_total < min_order_total
THEN
queue_order_for_addtl_parts (order_id);ELSIF order_total = 0
THEN
MESSAGE (' No items have been placed in this order!');
END IF;
Chapter 19: Nested Tables and VARRAYs
On page 674, the example of MULTISET is missing a closing parenthesis (show below in red):SELECT CAST (MULTISET (SELECT field FROM table) AS collection-type)
FROM DUAL;