I accidentally locked myself out of my house this evening, and so I had to climb up the wall like a burglar and clamber in through a bathroom window, while the neighbourhood kids all watched and giggled, probably taking secret photos to share on Snapchat or something. Embarrassing, yes, but what’s it got to do with Oracle? Well, the point… Read more
All databases stand on a tripod of datatypes: strings, numbers and dates. And though they might dress them in fancy clothing – varchar2, clob, float, integer – strings are really just strings, and numbers are really just numbers. But dates — dates are interesting. In this article I’ll talk to you about dates, about time, and about how both ar… Read more
A wise man once said, I know one thing: that I know nothing. If you’ve followed this series from the very beginning I am hoping that you’ve gone from knowing absolutely nothing about Oracle database programming to this point where you know the foundations, know how the parts fit together – basically, know enough to know that there’s a who… Read more
A wise man once said: start at the beginning and go on till you come to the end: then stop. We’ve done things a little differently; all this time we’ve been talking about examining and manipulating the data in our tables, but we have never paused to consider where these tables come from, or discuss how they are created. Tim… Read more
A wise man once said, insanity is doing the same thing over and over again but expecting different results. If that is the case then no one’s saner than a computer programmer*, because programming is executing the same code over and over again and expecting the same results. We’ve already talked about bundling up statements in anonymous PL/SQL blocks; now… Read more
A wise man* once said, all software programming is about hoops and loops. You take some variables, give them hoops to jump through and, depending on their success or failure, you give them some actions to loop through a number of times. Might sound basic, but that’s what all software code – from Angry Birds to the space shuttle –… Read more
Part 1, Part 2, Part 3 A wise man* once said: To build the Great Wall of China, you must start with a brick. In our previous articles we acquainted ourselves with our bricks; now it’s time to build. If we consider what we’ve learned so far – Select, Update, Insert, Delete – as unicellular organisms, what we’re about to… Read more
Part 1, Part 2. A wise man* once said: So no-one told you life was gonna be this way. Your job’s a joke, you’re broke, your love life’s DOA. It’s like you’re always stuck in second gear. And when it hasn’t been your day, you week, your month, or even your year. [*That wise man wasn’t me; but stick wit… Read more
A wise man* once said, no one’s ever learned how to cook just by reading recipes. And so, since we painted in the background in Part 1, we are now going to roll up our sleeves and dive in. By the end of this article you will be reading and writing SQL, the lingua franca of databases. [* that wis… Read more
A wise man* once said, an expert is someone who uses big words and acronyms where simple phrases would do just as nicely. So stand back and listen to this: Database, Relational Database, DBMS, RDBMS, SQL, Sub-queries, normalisation. [* that wise man was me.] So now that I’ve established my credentials by bamboozling you with arcane words and capital letters,… Read more
