SQL*Plus Compatibility
SQL*Plus is used for a variety of things in the Oracle environment. In the early days (version 5 and before), SQL*Plus was also used as an administrative tool. Today, SQL*Plus has taken back the Server Manager role. SQL*Plus has always been a good character-mode reporting tool, a tool used to create SQL-creating-SQL (next topic in this chapter), and so on. It is quite powerful with its formatting and file creation (spool commands) to perform a variety of tasks in the Oracle environment.
TOAD is an excellent tool for creating and maintaining these SQL*Plus scripts. The Script Output tab in the results panel is powerful in that you can see what the script has produced without having to leave TOAD and run the script in a separate window with SQL*Plus.
TOAD primarily supports the reporting features of SQL*Plus and not the administrative functions that have been given back to SQL*Plus.
 | Make sure to run any SQL*Plus script as a script! |
TOAD supports these SQL*Plus commands:
@ (“at” sign) @@ (double “at” sign) / (slash) BREAK (BRE) partial support CLEAR COLUMN (partial support, including: ALIAS, NOPRINT/PRINT, NEW_VALUE) COMPUTE (partial support including: SUM, MIN, MAX) DEFINE DESCRIBE HEADING JUSTIFY SPOOL <Filename>, SPOOL OFF, and SPO. Non-qualified files are created in the <TOAD Home Directory>TEMPS directory. Relative-location file creation is supported. SET AUTOTRACE SET ECHO (ON/OFF) SET ESCAPE (ON/OFF) SET ESCAPE/ESC '' ( is any character)—defaults to SET HEADING/HEA (ON/off) SET FEEDBACK (ON/off) SET LINESIZE SET SERVEROUTPUT/SERVEROUT (ON/OFF) SET TERM (ON/off) DEFINE/DEF and UNDEFINE/UNDEF PAUSE EXIT/QUIT PROMPT/PRO CONNECT/CON and DISCONNECT/DISC. REM/REMARK RUN
TOAD simply ignores the following SQL*Plus commands:
SET TAB STORE SET VERIFY PAGESIZE
and any other SET commands not supported by TOAD.
The following SQL*Plus commands are NOT supported in TOAD:
ACCEPT APPEND ARCHIVE LOG ATTRIBUTE BTITLE/TTITLE CHANGE COPY DEL EDIT EXECUTE GET HELP HOST INPUT LIST PASSWORD RECOVER REPHEADER/REPFOOTER SAVE SHOW SHUTDOWN START STARTUP TIMING VARIABLE WHENEVER OSERROR WHENEVER SQLERROR