#

| Preface |

## Structure of This Book

This book is separated into six parts as follows:

Part I: Working With Packages

  This part introduces packages, the most important construct in PL/SQL for building reusable code and employing object-oriented design techniques. Chapter 1, PL/SQL Packages describes how and when you should create packages and explains why PL/SQL developers should learn to center their entire development process around packages Chapter 2, Best Practices for Packages presents my tried-and-true "best practices" for building packages. Chapter 3, The PL/SQL Development Spiral puts packages in the context of overall PL/SQL development by providing a tutorial on solving a typical problem in PL/SQL.

Part II: PL/Vision Overview

  Chapter 4, Getting Started with PL/Vision gets you started with PL/Vision, a collection of PL/SQL packages and supporting SQL*Plus scripts that can radically change the way you develop applications with the PL/SQL language. Chapter 5, PL/Vision Package Specifications provides a brief summary of all of the specifications for the PL/Vision packages, and is marked with a thumb-tab for quick reference.

Part III: Building Block Packages

  Chapters 6 through 13 describe the building block packages of PL/Vision; these are low-level packages that you can use to enhance your development -- for example, string parsers, a list manager, and an interface to PL/SQL tables.

Part IV: Developer Utility Packages

  Chapters 14 through 18 describe the developer utilities of PL/Vision; these are programs that improve your PL/SQL development environment -- for example, a code generator, a powerful substitute for SHOW ERORS, and an online help delivery mechanism.

Part V: PL/Vision Plug-and-Play Packages

  Chapters 19 through 22 describe the plug-and-play components of PL/Vision; these are pieces of code that can be used as is in your own applications -- for example, a high-level exception handler mechanism and a generic, reusable logging mechanism.

Part VI: Testing Your Knowledge

  The appendix provides a set of exercises (and their solutions) to test your knowledge of the PL/SQL language.

Objectives of This Book |  | Conventions Used in This Book

Copyright (c) 2000 O'Reilly & Associates. All rights reserved.

>[Preface] Conventions Used in This Book

#

| Preface |

## Conventions Used in This Book

The following conventions are used in this book:

Italic

  is used for ﬁle and directory names.

Bold

  is used in headers.

`Constant width`

  is used for code examples and for variable, procedure, function, and package names in the text, as well as executable SQL scripts.

UPPERCASE

  in code examples, indicates PL/SQL keywords.

lowercase

  in code examples, indicates user-defined items such as variables and parameters.

punctuation

  in code examples, enter exactly as shown.

indentation

  in code examples, helps to show structure but is not required.

.

  In code examples and related discussions, a dot qualifies a reference by separating an object name from a component name. For example, dot notation is used to specify declarations within a package (e.g., `PLVvu.code`).

In general, all of the discussions and examples in this book apply regardless of the machine and/or operating system you are using. In those few cases where a feature is in any way system-dependent, I note that in the text.

Structure of This Book |  | About the Disk

Copyright (c) 2000 O'Reilly & Associates. All rights reserved.