PL/SQL Inherits Database Robustness, Security, and Portability

PL/SQL is a powerful, yet straightforward database programming language. It is easy to both write and read, and comes packed with lots of out-of-the-box optimizations and security features.

An application that uses Oracle Database is worthless unless only correct and complete data is persisted. The time-honored way to ensure this is to expose the database only via an interface that hides the implementation details—the tables and the SQL statements that operate on these. This approach is generally called the smart database or SmartDB paradigm, because PL/SQL subprograms inside the database issue the SQL statements from code that implements the surrounding business logic; and because the data can be changed and viewed only through a PL/SQL interface.

The Data Dictionary: Make Views Work for You: Use several key data dictionary views to analyze and manage your code

• Building with Blocks: PL/SQL is a block-structured language; familiarity with blocks is critical to writing good code.
• Controlling the Flow of Execution: Conditional branching and iterative processing in PL/SQL
• Wrap Your Code in a Neat Package: Packages are the fundamental building blocks of any high quality PL/SQL-based application
• Picking Your Packages: Concepts and benefits of PL/SQL packages
• Error Management: An exploration of error management features in PL/SQL
• The Data Dictionary: Make Views Work for You: Use several key data dictionary views to analyze and manage your code

• Working with Strings: PL/SQL offers several different string datatypes for use in your applications
• Working with Numbers: Learn about and how to use the different numeric types in PL/SQL
• Working with Dates: Dates are a relatively complex scalar datatype, in both SQL and PL/SQL
• Working with Records: A very common and useful composite type, PL/SQL’s analogue to a table’s row
• Error Management: PL/SQL’s implementation of arrays plays a role in almost every key performance feature of PL/SQL
• Working with Collections: Use several key data dictionary views to analyze and manage your code

• Working with Cursors: PL/SQL cursors make it easy for you to manipulate the contents of database tables
• Bulk Processing with BULK COLLECT and FORALL: The most important performance feature in PL/SQL related to executing SQL

"Practically Perfect PL/SQL" (P3) offers videos on PL/SQL by Steven Feuerstein, Oracle Developer Advocate for PL/SQL and author of Oracle PL/SQL Programming.

Getting Rid of Hard-Coding in PL/SQL
This first P3 playlist explores the various forms of hard-coding that can appear in PL/SQL and how best to get rid of them.

• What is hard-coding?
• The psychology behind hard-coding
• Get rid of those hard-coded literals!
• Every VARCHAR2(N) declaration a bug!?
• Hide those business rules and formulas!

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• Oracle and Node.js