Oracle Pro Tips, Trends & Technology eXTRA Pinnacle Publishing http://www.pinnaclepublishing.com Issue 3.10 June 25, 2002 TABLE OF CONTENTS 1) Pop Quiz (answer at the end) 2) Books 3) Oracle News 4) Requirements Analysis 5) Answer to the Pop Quiz --------------------------------------------------------- 1) POP QUIZ (answer at the end) --------------------------------------------------------- The following questions are related to the use of SQL*Plus: a. How do you widen the display width of the SQL output? b. How do you ensure that the widened display doesn't contain trailing blanks? c. How do you display SQL output one page at a time? d. How do you ensure that calls to the dbms_output package within a stored program are echoed on screen? e. What's the difference between the @ and the @@ commands? --------------------------------------------------------- 2) BOOKS --------------------------------------------------------- Oracle Press has a number of books on Oracle, from the use of Oracle tools to financials implementation using Oracle Applications. Find out more about these books at: http://shop.osborne.com/cgi-bin/oraclepress --------------------------------------------------------- 3) ORACLE NEWS --------------------------------------------------------- Oracle had a press release on Monday, June 24, stating that it had set a new world record for Oracle9i database, surpassing the performance of rivals such as IBM DB2 as well as NCR Teradata. Find out more at the following link: http://biz.yahoo.com/djus/020624/200206241510000540_1.html * * * * Oracle had been known for its aggressive sales tactics. Oftentimes it would include high-pressure sales tactics such as steep discounts that encouraged customers and the Oracle sales to close licensing deals at quarter end. The new sales strategy calls the elimination of such practice. Instead, Oracle will resort to a "one-rate" rate for its sales staff, and it will no longer offer steep discounts at quarter end. The advantage is that customers will no longer be under immense pressure to make a purchase. On the other hand, this new strategy also carries some risk. In particular, some analysts are concerned that the new plan will remove the incentive for the sales staff to pursue business aggressively. Find out more about this interesting article at the following URL: http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=70&ncid=738&e=6&u=/cn/20020619/tc_cn/937593 --------------------------------------------------------- 4) REQUIREMENTS ANALYSIS --------------------------------------------------------- In an article published in the Rational Edge on-line magazine, Eric Lopes Cardozo talked about the typical reasons why projects fail, and they are: 1. Lack of Effective Communication 2. Lack of Buy-In for an Iterative Development Approach 3. Faulty Methodology 4. Poor Requirements Gathering and Documentation 5. Lack of Unified Tool Use Adapting the seven habits of effective people elaborated by Stephen Covey, the author went on to describe the "seven habits that foster [project] success." I didn't want to give away all the interesting points, so you'll check out the article at the URL below: http://www.therationaledge.com/content/jun_02/f_sevenHabits_ec.jsp * * * * At present, there are quite a few tools available to help with gathering requirements, documenting them, and managing requirements, as depicted below: Requirements documentation tools: 1. Rational Rose (http://www.rational.com/) 2. Tpgetjer (http://www.togethersoft.com/) Requirements documentation and management tools: 1. Rational RequisitePro (http://www.rational.com/) 2. Telelogic DOORS (http://www.telelogic.com/) * * * * Oracle also offers its own methodology and products for managing the requirements definition process. For custom application development, Oracle has developed the Oracle Custom Development Method (CDM). This methodology is supported by the Oracle9i Designer tool. Oracle9i Designer provides "a complete toolset to model, generate, and capture the requirements and design of applications." Oracle9i Designer can be used for "modeling and generating database-oriented, Web-based applications deployed using Java, XML, Oracle9i Forms and Reports, and dynamic HTML." Find out more at: http://technet.oracle.com/products/designer/content.html * * * * For Oracle Applications implementation, Oracle offers AIM -- Application Implementation Method. According to Oracle, AIM " ...is a proven, structured approach for implementing business solutions based on Oracle Applications ...It is a Web-deployed toolkit for planning, executing, and controlling Oracle Applications implementation projects." Find out more at the following link: http://www.oracle.com/consulting/offerings/implementation/methods_tools/index.html?aim_faq.html --------------------------------------------------------- 5) ANSWER TO THE POP QUIZ --------------------------------------------------------- a. How do you widen the display width of the SQL output? SQL> SET LINESIZE nnn where nnn corresponds to the page width -- for example, 900 b. How do you ensure that the widened display doesn't contain trailing blanks? SQL> SET TRIMSPOOL ON c. How do you display SQL output one page at a time? SQL> SET PAUSE ON To instruct SQL*Plus to display a prompt wherever there is a next page of data, enter the following instead: SQL> SET PAUSE ON SET PAUSE more... d. How do you ensure that calls to the dbms_output package within a stored program are echoed on screen? SQL> SET SERVEROUTPUT ON e. What's the difference between the @ and the @@ commands? The "@" command executes the command file that resides in the current working directory. You can find out what the current directory is by entering the following command in the SQL prompt: SQL> HOST The "@@" commands instructs Oracle to execute the named command file that is in the same directory as the script containing the command. Let's illustrate this with an example. Let's say our working directory is C:\TEMP, and we try to execute a script called X.SQL in the C:\SQL directory, as shown below: SQL> @C:\SQL\X.SQL Suppose the X.SQL script contains the following command: @@ENV.SQL @NEXT.SQL SQL*Plus will try to locate ENV.SQL in the C:\SQL directory, whereas it will try to locate NEXT.SQL in the C:\TEMP directory. --------------------------------------------------------- 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 This eNewsletter is brought to you compliments of Pinnacle Publishing, Inc. Copyright(c) 2002 http://www.pinnaclepublishing.com All rights reserved.