This book is the definitive reference on PL/SQL, considered throughout the database community to be the best Oracle programming book available. Like its predecessors, this fifth edition of "Oracle PL/SQL Programming" covers language fundamentals, advanced coding techniques, and best practices for using Oracle's powerful procedural language. Thoroughly updated for Oracle Database 11g Release 2, this edition reveals new PL/SQL features and provides extensive code samples, ranging from simple examples to complex and complete applications, in the book and on the companion website. This indispensable reference for both novices and experienced Oracle programmers will help you: get PL/SQL programs up and running quickly, with clear instructions for executing, tracing, testing, debugging, and managing PL/SQL code; optimize PL/SQL performance with the aid of a brand-new chapter in the fifth edition; and, explore datatypes, conditional and sequential control statements, loops, exception handling, security features, globalization and localization issues, and the PL/SQL architecture. This title also helps you: understand and use new Oracle Database 11g features, including the edition-based redefinition capability, the function result cache, the new continue statement, fine-grained dependency tracking, sequences in PL/SQL expressions, supertype invocation from subtypes, and enhancements to native compilation, triggers, and dynamic SQL; use new Oracle Database 11g tools and techniques such as PL/Scope, the PL/SQL hierarchical profiler, and the SecureFiles technology for large objects; and, build modular PL/SQL applications using procedures, functions, triggers, and packages.

Steven Feuerstein is considered one of the world's leading experts on the Oracle PL/SQL language. He is the author or coauthor of Oracle PL/SQL Programming, Oracle PL/SQL Best Practices, Oracle PL/SQL Programming: Guide to Oracle8i Features, Oracle PL/SQL Developer's Workbook, Oracle Built-in Packages, Advanced Oracle PL/SQL Programming with Packages, and several pocket reference books (all from O'Reilly & Associates). Steven is a Senior Technology Advisor with Quest Software, has been developing software since 1980, and worked for Oracle Corporation from 1987 to 1992. Bill Pribyl is the primary author of Learning Oracle PL/SQL and the coauthor of Oracle PL/SQL Programming and its companion pocket reference, all from O'Reilly Media. He is oddly proud of having used PL/SQL to write TCP/IP networking clients, tnsping callouts, near-realtime commodity price loaders, and transcendental functions. Bill, who holds a degree in physics from Rice University, is the former editor of the IOUG technical journal (Select) and former president of the South Central Oracle Users Group. At home with his family in Houston, Texas, Bill's current nonbillable titles include Webmaster for his neighborhood civic club, "IT Guy" for his son's Boy Scout troop, and Eucharistic Adoration Coordinator for his church. Visit Bill's firm at http://www.datacraft.com.