Oracle implementation versus ieee- standard

multiple row-level BEFORE INSERT trig‐ gers, 702
BEQUEATH CURRENT_USER clause for
views, 13, 1061
BETWEEN operator, 270
BFILE type, 179, 420
accessing BFILEs, 433
creating a BFILE locator, 432
difference from internal LOBs, 431
sending email attachment as, 953
using BFILEs to load LOB columns, 434
BFILENAME function, 433
binary data
case-insensitive sorts, 208
datatypes, 179
binary files (see BFILE type)
binary float (32-bit) or binary double (64-bit) floating-point literals, 73
binary large object (see BLOB type)
binary sort, 1116
BINARY_DOUBLE and BINARY_FLOAT
types, 177, 242, 251–256
Oracle implementation versus IEEE-754 standard, 255
performance, BINARY_DOUBLE versus NUMBER type, 253
using for floating-point arithmetic, 922
BINARY_INTEGER type, 242, 249
bind operations (cursor), 488
bind values, 1030
bind variables
reducing memory use with, 1081–1084
supplying bind arguments with USING
clause of EXECUTE IMMEDIATE, 539 supplying bind arguments with USING
clause of OPEN FOR, 547
use in statement sharing, 1079
using FGA with, 1035
using in NDS to mimimize dangers of code injection, 567
binding variables, 550–557
argument modes, 551
duplicate placeholders, 553
passing NULL values as bind arguments, 554 binding, using instead of concatenation in NDS, 564
BITAND function, 272
blank-padding comparisons, 230

BLOB type, 179, 420
BasicFiles, 983
loading from BFILEs, 434
reading from, 430
retrieving web page into a BLOB, 958
selecting BLOB column into a BLOB
PL/SQL variable, 423
writing into BLOBs, 429
block-structured language, 57
blocks, 53–65
anonymous, 55
building dynamic PL/SQL blocks, 558
labeling, 77
named, 57
nested, 57
qualifying references to variables and col‐ umns in SQL statements, 59
replacing repetitive code with dynamic
blocks, 560
scope, 58
sections, 53
visibility of variables, 62
body
of a cursor, 503
of a function, 605
of a loop, 107
of a package, 652, 654, 656
rules for building, 660
of a procedure, 597
Booch diagram of private and public package el‐ ements, 657
books on PL/SQL, 15
Boolean literals, 74
BOOLEAN type, 178, 415
Booleans
binding PL/SQL-specific Boolean with EXE‐ CUTE IMMEDIATE, 541
displaying Boolean values with
DBMS_OUTPUT, 927
using Boolean variables as flags for expres‐ sion evaluation, 87
bottlenecks in PL/SQL code, identifying, 827– 832
boundary (loop), 107
bounded collections, 344
browsers
Unicode character encodings, 1103
buffer
reading contents of, 928

package-based, 845–850
caching table contents, 848
example of, 846
just-in-time caching of table data, 850 when to use, 845
session cursor cache, 1079
static session data, 663, 684
summary of recommendations for, 868
calculated columns, 507
calendars, NLS_CALENDAR setting, 1130
call specs, 1228, 1244
rules for, 1229
writing for external procedure, 1256–1266 overall syntax of call spec, 1257
parameter mapping, 1258–1262
PARAMETERS clause, 1262–1266
CALL statement, 41
cardinality for pipelined table functions, 904– 909
carriage return character, 206
case
case-insensitive indexes, 446
case-insensitivity in PL
SQL, 66, 174
case-sensitivity in Java, 1215
handling in strings, 207
capitalizing each word, 209
case-insensitivity and indexes, 209
forcing string to all upper- or lowercase, 208
making comparisons case insensitive, 208 returning strings in upper- or lower-case for national languages, 235
setting first letter of each word to uppercase with INITCAP, 233
setting first letter of word to uppercase with NLS_INITCAP, 235
CASE statements and expressions, 93–100
CASE expressions, 98
CASE statement, 8
nested CASE statements, 97
searched CASE statements, 95
simple CASE statements, 93
using NULL statement in, 102
CASE_NOT_FOUND error, 94
CAST function, 194, 267
casting DATEs to TIMESTAMPs, 316