Oracle Built in Packages

Steven Feuerstein's first book, Oracle PR/SQL Programming, has become an indispensable reference for both novice and experienced PL/SQL developers. This new book focuses on one particularly important and advanced aspect of Oracle's powerful PL/SQL language -- the built-in packages. Built-in packages are collections of PL/SQL objects stored directly in the Oracle database and available from such programming environments as Visual Basic, Oracle Developer/2000, Oracle application server (for web-based development), and, of course, the Oracle database itself. Built-in packages dramatically extend the capabilities of PL/SQL. For example, DBMS_SQL executes dynamically constructed SQL statements and PL/SQL blocks of code; DBMS_PIPE communicates between different Oracle sessions; and DBMS_LOB accesses and manipulates Oracle8's large objects (LOBs) from within PL/SQL programs. Oracle Built-in Packages is the first and only comprehensive reference to the Oracle built-in packages. It supplies extensive examples on using the built-ins effectively and covers the newest Oracle8 packages. The book comes with a diskette containing the companion guide, an online tool developed by RevealNet, Inc., that provides point-and-click access to more than 175 files of reusable source code and examples.

User review
Good Reference
This serves as a good reference book. Saved lot of time many, many times. I bought this book 2+ yrs ago and still helps me out. But I think this book needs a major update. Oracle8i is a new beast altogether (I didn't work with 9i yet) and there are tons of new built-in packages that are very useful.

User review
25% useful, 75% Promotion of Author's products
I code and teach a lot of PL/QL, and this is the only book I have found which goes into any depth on these built-ins. It tells me most everything I want to know. However, you have to dig through tons of sample code from his PL/SQL products. In most cases, you won't find a clear example of the Oracle built-in packages (you know, the ones the book is supposed to be about?). Instead, there are huge, unneccesarily complex examples of how to use the author's bloated code (which is for sale, btw).

There is no doubt he is the foremost author on PL/SQL, but it's not worth digging through the junk and arrogance. To quote the back cover:
`I work with built-in packages every day, and nobody kicks sand in my face-- at least when it comes to PL/SQL!` Given the amount of his own code he buried them under, I doubt he ever even *sees* the Oracle built-ins anymore.
We have used his other books as texts for professional training, and the students have the same complaints. They are better than the manuals which come with Oracle, but not by much. (If you want a good PL/SQL book, check out Oracle PL/SQL Programming by Scott Urman. Doesn't cover built-ins much, but its far better than the Feuerstein PL/SQL or Advanced PL/SQL books).
Summary: Better than the manuals, if you like searching for needles in haystacks.

User review
excellent source for advanced PL/SQL development
This book is absolutely necessary to get oriented in Oracle documentation. It covers PL/SQL packages that are of major interest both for application developers and those of us who want to automate DBA functions. Wonderful writing and excellent code samples are very helpful!

Some examples of DBA-related packages are DBMS_SQL which takes care of dynamic SQL (chapter 2) and DBMS_JOB for cron-type PL/SQL scripts.

Chapter 3 covers DBMS_PIPE and DBMS_ALERT packages necessary to implement servers running inside Oracle independently from host operating system.

Chapter 6 describes DBMS_OUTPUT and UTL_FILE. DMS_OUTPUT is well-known for its put_line procedure which prints short (up to 256 bytes) strings to SQLPLUS console. However, from this book one can find out how to increase standard overall output size for this package - which may be crucial for testing. UTL_FILE takes care of ASCII file I/O for PL/SQL.

Considering Large Objects management (chapter 8), we remember this is 1998 book, it does not cover latest Oracle object-related features like types or collections. Now ASCII documents (such as news articles) can be kept in VARARRAYs rather than in CLOBs.

ORACLE BUILT-IN PACKAGES is more of a reference than a tutorial, it leaves for the reader to find out what functionality is actually needed and for what technical purpose.

User review
Better call it: O'reilly build-in packages
Very little about Oracle build-in packages. Much more about O'reilly's own build-in packages, it is more like a kind of ads.

I want to use packages, doesn't mean I want O'reilly packages. If you want to sell O'reilly packages, name the book accordingly.

I wanted to know more about the numerous oracle standard build-in packages, this book didn't help me.

User review
Excellent Encyclopedia on Oracle Packages
Oracle should just have O'Reilly publish all of their documentation. Though I haven't had a need to use 85% of Oracle's packages, the ones that I have read are thoroughly documented. Even the author (Steve Feuerstein) mentioned that there are even MORE builtin packages that he didn't put into his book. Word is that he may add more of them.

Excellent book.

Gio