Looking for oracle/sql tutorials and advice

Hi

I'm teaching myself oracle and I am looking for some easy to follow step by step tutorials on oracle and sql. I already found a few good introductions which cover the basics (and possibly more) but the ones I have found so far seem to leave a lot of questions. Two things I would like to learn how to do are:

1. How to 'unnormalise' so data. For example, I have followed a tutorial which shows how to normalise the contents of a column. So now the data has been put in a 'lookup' table and replaced with an ID (corresponding to the ID in the lookup table). How do I get the data back into the table it originally came from?
2. Working with foreign keys. So far my studied have given me the impression that this is the key to how relational databases work - what makes them powerful/useful etc. But the only way I have seen to access this power is by creating queries, to make a report. But what about when one wants to add new data? e.g. in the Human Resources example (which comes with Oracle 10g Express) there is a table for employees, and also for departments. The department_id column on the employees table is constrained to the department_id column in the departments table. Now I want to create an application that displays the employees table, and also can display a form for adding new employees. On this form I would like there to be a button, next to each employee, which brings up the list of departments. From this I can select the department from this list. Is it possible to do something like this?

Thanks for any advice.

Michael Received on Sat Apr 26 2008 - 18:05:59 CDT