Oracle PL/SQL Best Practices

by Feuerstein, Steven

• ISBN13: 9780596514105
• ISBN10: 0596514107
• Edition: 2nd
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2007-10-01
• Publisher: Oreilly & Associates Inc

Summary

In this compact book, Steven Feuerstein, widely recognized as one of the world's leading experts on the Oracle PL/SQL language, distills his many years of programming, teaching, and writing about PL/SQL into a set of best practices-recommendations for developing successful applications. Covering the latest Oracle release, Oracle Database 11gR2, Feuerstein has rewritten this new edition in the style of his bestsellingOracle PL/SQL Programming. The text is organized in a problem/solution format, and chronicles the programming exploits of developers at a mythical company called My Flimsy Excuse, Inc., as they write code, make mistakes, and learn from those mistakes-and each other. This book offers practical answers to some of the hardest questions faced by PL/SQL developers, including: What is the best way to write the SQL logic in my application code? How should I write my packages so they can be leveraged by my entire team of developers? How can I make sure that all my team's programs handle and record errors consistently? Oracle PL/SQL Best Practicessummarizes PL/SQL best practices in nine major categories: overall PL/SQL application development; programming standards; program testing, tracing, and debugging; variables and data structures; control logic; error handling; the use of SQL in PL/SQL; building procedures, functions, packages, and triggers; and overall program performance. This book is a concise and entertaining guide that PL/SQL developers will turn to again and again as they seek out ways to write higher quality code and more successful applications. "This book presents ideas that make the difference between a successful project and one that never gets off the ground. It goes beyond just listing a set of rules, and provides realistic scenarios that help the reader understand where the rules come from. This book should be required reading for any team of Oracle database professionals." --Dwayne King, President, KRIDAN Consulting

Author Biography

Steven Feuerstein is considered one of the world's leading experts on the Oracle PL/SQL language. He is the author or coauthor of Oracle PL/SQL Programming, Oracle PL/SQL Best Practices, Oracle PL/SQL Programming: Guide to Oracle8i Features, Oracle PL/SQL Developer's Workbook, Oracle Built-in Packages, Advanced Oracle PL/SQL Programming with Packages, and several pocket reference books (all from O'Reilly & Associates). Steven is a Senior Technology Advisor with Quest Software, has been developing software since 1980, and worked for Oracle Corporation from 1987 to 1992.

Table of Contents

Preface	p. ix
The Big Picture	p. 1
Successful Applications Are Never an Accident	p. 2
Best Practices for Successful Applications	p. 5
Real Developers Follow Standards	p. 37
Best Practices for Developing and Using Standards	p. 38
Life After Compilation	p. 51
Testing, Tracing, and Debugging	p. 52
Best Practices for Testing, Tracing, and Debugging	p. 53
What's Code Without Variables?	p. 73
Best Practices for Declaring Variables and Data Structures	p. 73
Best Practices for Using Variables and Data Structures	p. 81
Best Practices for Declaring and Using Package Variables	p. 88
Developer As Traffic Cop	p. 95
Best Practices for Conditional and Boolean Logic	p. 95
Best Practices for Loop Processing	p. 101
Best Practices for Branching Logic	p. 111
Doing the Right Thing When Stuff Goes Wrong	p. 114
Best Practices for Understanding Error Handling	p. 115
Best Practices for Nitty-Gritty, Everyday Exception Programming	p. 131
Best Practices for Coding Defensively	p. 135
Break Your Addiction to SQL	p. 140
SQL Is Bad!	p. 141
General SQL Best Practices	p. 144
Best Practices for Querying Data from PL/SQL	p. 158
Best Practices for Changing Data from PL/SQL	p. 163
Best Practices for Dynamic SQL	p. 168
Playing with Blocks (of Code)	p. 179
Best Practices for Parameters	p. 180
Best Practices for Procedures and Functions	p. 186
Best Practices for Packages	p. 205
Best Practices for Triggers	p. 211
My Code Runs Faster Than Your Code	p. 218
Best Practices for Finding Slow Code	p. 219
Best Practices for High-Impact Tuning	p. 225
Best Practices for Other Tuning	p. 240
Best Practices Quick Reference	p. 247
Resources for PL/SQL Developers	p. 252
Index	p. 259
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