Re: sqlplus extensions, a simple answer

I think you misunderstand the purpose of sqlplus. Sqlplus is a client program which allows the user to send sql such as DML, DCL, DDL, etc to the RDBMS engine. In addition, it also has some of its own functionality to format output. Outside of sqlplus, statements such as "set linesize 50" are meaningless because they are not SQL concepts.

There are other clients which can send sql statements to the rdbms, but while some of these clients provide very robust report formatting, some have virtually none and it is therefore up to the programmer to write programs that will perform the formatting.

The sqlplus "compute" statement is only known to sqlplus. You can get similar results with other products, but you must perform the computations programmatically.

What you really must remember is that sqlplus is not Oracle. It is only a tool that Oracle has supplied which makes life a bit easier for Oracle users.

Roberto Diaz wrote:

> Hi! Oracle gurus ;)
>
> I'm a begginer with oracle i wonder how usefull is to learn all the
> capabilities of sqlplus.. I mean the following.. in order to use 'compute'
> for example or anyother sqlplus sql-extension must I always pipe my script
> througth sqlplus?
>
> Can I, for example, use Perl DBI/DBD and send sqlplus commands directly to
> the server to recieve something formated?
>
> Thank you very much please answer me to rdiazmar_at_nova.es
>
> --
>
> Saludos
>
> Roberto Díaz <rdiazmar_at_nova.es>
> http://www.linuxfocus.org/developer/Roberto
Received on Mon Sep 20 1999 - 07:06:53 CDT