Chapter 7. Using Advanced SQL Techniques and SQL*Plus Reporting Features

This chapter extends the knowledge of both Chapters 2, “Fundamentals of the SQL Language,” and 6, “Building Oracle Reports,” showing the reader more advanced features of the SQL language, then incorporating these advanced features into SQL*Plus reports. This chapter will illustrate many of the new Oracle9i database features and be a good learning aid to Oracle Programming. This chapter will focus on some introductory topics such as what is a relational database, what is SQL, the Oracle9I database architecture, and a brief description of the tools that will be used throughout this book.

This chapter teaches you the following:

• How to use SQL functions

• How to access two or more tables in a single query

• How to build SQL queries based on the results of other SQL queries

• How to incorporate this new knowledge in SQL*Plus reports