- Oracle SQL*Plus: The Definitive Guide
- Preface
- 1. Introduction to SQL*Plus
- 2. Interacting with SQL*Plus
- 3. Generating Reports with SQL*Plus
- Following a Methodology
- Saving Your Work
- Designing a Simple Report
- Advanced Report Formatting
- Totals and Subtotals
- Other Reporting Topics
- 4. Writing SQL*Plus Scripts
- Why Write Scripts?
- Using Substitution Variables
- Prompting for Values
- Cleaning Up the Display
- Packaging Your Script
- The DEFINE and UNDEFINE Commands
- Controlling Variable Substitution
- Commenting Your Scripts
- 5. Extracting and Loading Data
- 6. Exploring Your Database
- 7. Advanced Scripting
- 8. Tuning and Timing
- 9. The Product User Profile
- 10. Administration with SQL*Plus
- 11. Customizing Your SQL*Plus Environment
- SQL*Plus Settings You Can Control
- The Site and User Profiles
- Environment Variable Settings
- The SET Command
- The SHOW Command
- A. SQL*Plus Command Reference
- SQLPLUS
- Comment Delimiters (/*...*/)
- Double Hyphen (- -)
- At Sign (@)
- Double At Sign (@@)
- Forward Slash (/)
- ACCEPT
- APPEND
- ARCHIVE LOG
- ATTRIBUTE
- BREAK
- BTITLE
- CHANGE
- CLEAR
- COPY
- COLUMN
- COMPUTE
- CONNECT
- DEFINE
- DEL
- DESCRIBE
- DISCONNECT
- EDIT
- EXECUTE
- EXIT
- GET
- HELP
- HOST
- INPUT
- LIST
- PASSWORD
- PAUSE
- PROMPT
- QUIT
- RECOVER
- REMARK
- REPFOOTER
- REPHEADER
- RUN
- SAVE
- SET
- SHOW
- SHUTDOWN
- SPOOL
- START
- STARTUP
- STORE
- TIMING
- TTITLE
- UNDEFINE
- VARIABLE
- WHENEVER
- B. SQL*Plus Format Elements
- Index
- Colophon
The DEFINE command allows you to create a user variable (or substitution variable), and to assign it a value. DEFINE may also be used to list the value of a particular variable, or of all variables. DEFINE is discussed in Chapter 4.
DEF[INE] [variable_name[=text]]
where:
- DEF[INE]
Is the command, which may be abbreviated to DEF. Entering DEFINE by itself causes SQL*Plus to display list of all currently defined user variables.
- variable_name
Is the name of the variable you want to create. Issue the command with only a variable name, and SQL*Plus will display the current contents of that variable, if it exists.
- text
Is the text you want to assign to that variable. This may optionally be enclosed by single or double quotes, which you should use any time the value contains spaces or any other nonalphabetic character.
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