Manual oracle 8

Oracle8™

SQL Reference

Release 8.0

December 1997 Part No. A58225-01

Oracle8™ Server SQL Reference Part No. A58225-01 Release 8.0 Copyright © 1997 Oracle Corporation. All Rights Reserved. Primary Author: Diana Lorentz

Contributors: Steve Bobrowski, Robert Jenkins, Susan Kotsovolos, Andre Kruglikov, Vishu Krishna, Muralidhar Krishnaprasa, Michael Kung, Paul Lane, NinaLewis, Lefty Leverenz, Phil Locke, William Maimone, Mohammad Monajjemi, Rita Moran, Thomas Portfolio, Valarie Moore, Denis Raphaely, Richard Sarwal, Rick Wong The programs are not intended for use in any nuclear, aviation, mass transit, medical, or other inherently dangerous applications. It shall be licensee's responsibility to take all appropriate fail-safe, back up, redundancy and othermeasures to ensure the safe use of such applications if the Programs are used for such purposes, and Oracle disclaims liability for any damages caused by such use of the Programs. This Program contains proprietary information of Oracle Corporation; it is provided under a license agreement containing restrictions on use and disclosure and is also protected by copyright patent and otherintellectual property law. Reverse engineering of the software is prohibited. The information contained in this document is subject to change without notice. If you find any problems in the documentation, please report them to us in writing. Oracle Corporation does not warrant that this document is error free. If this Program is delivered to a U.S. Government Agency of the Department ofDefense, then it is delivered with Restricted Rights and the following legend is applicable: Restricted Rights Legend Programs delivered subject to the DOD FAR Supplement are 'commercial computer software' and use, duplication and disclosure of the Programs shall be subject to the licensing restrictions set forth in the applicable Oracle license agreement. Otherwise, Programs deliveredsubject to the Federal Acquisition Regulations are 'restricted computer software' and use, duplication and disclosure of the Programs shall be subject to the restrictions in FAR 52..227-14, Rights in Data -- General, including Alternate III (June 1987). Oracle Corporation, 500 Oracle Parkway, Redwood City, CA 94065. Oracle Call Interface, Oracle7, Oracle7 Server, Oracle8, Oracle Forms,Oracle Parallel Server, Net8, PL/ SQL, SQL*Net, Pro*C/C++, and SQL*Module are trademarks of Oracle Corporation, Redwood Shores, California. All other products or company names are used for identification purposes only, and may be trademarks of their respective owners.

Contents
Send Us Your Comments.................................................................................................................. xv Preface......................................................................................................................................................... xvii 1 Introduction
History of SQL.................................................................................................................................... SQLStandards.................................................................................................................................... Embedded SQL .................................................................................................................................. Lexical Conventions.......................................................................................................................... Tools Support...................................................................................................................................... 1- 1 1- 2 1- 3 1- 4 1- 5

2

Elements of Oracle8 SQL
Literals......................................................................................................................................................