Oracle Pro Tips, Trends & Technology eNewsletter
Pinnacle Publishing http://www.pinnaclepublishing.com
Issue 2.25
December 11, 2001

TABLE OF CONTENTS

1) Pop Quiz (answer at the end)
2) Did You Know...
3) URLs of the Issue: Oracle Books
4) Oracle9i Features: TIMESTAMP
5) Oracle News
6) Answer to the Pop Quiz

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1) POP QUIZ (answer at the end)
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How do you shut down an Oracle database running on
Windows NT automatically when you shut down the server?

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2) DID YOU KNOW...
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* that you can download Oracle's application server
software, Oracle9iAS, for evaluation? This is a full-
fledged Web server which allows serving of static HTML
pages, and dynamic pages written in Java and PL/SQL. It
is also integrated with Oracle Forms and Reports servers,
such that you can deploy Oracle form and report modules
over the Web. Check it out at:

http://otn.oracle.com/software/products/ias/content.html.

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3) URLs OF THE ISSUE: Oracle Books
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A new book on Oracle has been published by O'Reilly's.
Titled "Learning Oracle PL/SQL," it explores the features
of PL/SQL and how you can use the language to build
robust database applications. Chapter one of the book is
available free online at:

http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/learnoracle/chapter/ch01.html.

For more information about the book, including Table of
Contents, index, and author bios, see:

http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/learnoracle/.

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4) ORACLE9i FEATURES: TIMESTAMP
---------------------------------------------------------
Oracle9i provides a new data type, TIMESTAMP, which
extends the DATE data type. You can now store fractional
seconds in a TIMESTAMP database column.

Syntax:
   column_name   TIMESTAMP [(precision)]

where "column_name" refers to the database column, and
"precision" specifies the number of digits in the
fractional part of seconds that will be stored and
displayed. The "precision" value is a number that ranges
from 0 to 9. The default precision is six digits.

When storing and displaying TIMESTAMP columns, the
default format parameter is NLS_TIMESTAMP_FORMAT, and the
default format mask is "DD-MON-YY HH.MI.SS.FF AM."

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5) ORACLE NEWS
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Oracle's boast about its software being unbreakable is
apparently attracting a lot of computer hackers to its
Web site. They are probably drawn to Oracle's site to
break its code. According to Oracle, they have not been
successful thus far.

Find out more at the following link:

http://dailynews.yahoo.com/h/nm/20011209/tc/tech_oracle_unbreakable_dc_1.html.

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6) ANSWER TO THE POP QUIZ
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Oracle creates the following entries in the Windows NT
registry at database creation time:

ORA_{ORACLE_SID}_AUTOSTART=TRUE          - for automatic startup
ORA_{ORACLE_SID}_SHUTDOWNTYPE=i          - for immediate
ORA_{ORACLE_SID}_SHUTDOWN=TRUE           - for automatic shutdown.
ORA_{ORACLE_SID}_SHUTDOWN_TIMEOUT=30     - for timeout.

Note that {ORACLE_SID} refers to the Oracle instance ID.

Let me know if there are other means of shutting down the
database when the server goes down.

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Well, that's it for this week. I welcome your feedback,
input, tips, suggestions, Web sites, and other Oracle-
related news. If you send me something, please let me
know whether I can use your name with your comments. I
apologize in advance if I don't respond personally to
each of your questions or suggestions, but I'll get to as
many as I can in the eNewsletter if not personally.

Garry Chan, Editor
Database Architect
mailto:GChan@ProcaseConsulting.com

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Copyright(c) 2001
http://www.pinnaclepublishing.com
All rights reserved.