In this tutorial, you'll learn how to set linesize and pagesize .

PL/SQL (Procedural Language/Structured Query Language) is Oracle Corporation's procedural extension for SQL and the Oracle relational database. PL/SQL is available in Oracle Database (since version 7), TimesTen inmemory database (since version 11.2.1), and IBM DB2 (since version 9.7).[1] Oracle Corporation usually extends PL/SQL functionality with each successive release of the Oracle Database.

PL/SQL includes procedural language elements such as conditions and loops. It allows declaration of constants and variables, procedures and functions, types and variables of those types, and triggers. It can handle exceptions (runtime errors). Arrays are supported involving the use of PL/SQL collections. Implementations from version 8 of Oracle Database onwards have included features associated with objectorientation. One can create PL/SQL units such as procedures, functions, packages, types, and triggers, which are stored in the database for reuse by applications that use any of the Oracle Database programmatic interfaces.

PL/SQL works analogously to the embedded procedural languages associated with other relational databases. For example, Sybase ASE and Microsoft SQL Server have TransactSQL, PostgreSQL has PL/pgSQL (which emulates PL/SQL to an extent), and IBM DB2 includes SQL Procedural Language,[2] which conforms to the ISO SQL’s SQL/PSM standard.

The designers of PL/SQL modeled its syntax on that of Ada. Both Ada and PL/SQL have Pascal as a common ancestor, and so PL/SQL also resembles Pascal in several aspects. However, the structure of a PL/SQL package does not resemble the basic Object Pascal program structure as implemented by a Borland Delphi or Free Pascal unit. Programmers can define public and private global datatypes, constants and static variables in a PL/SQL package.[3]

PL/SQL also allows for the definition of classes and instantiating these as objects in PL/SQL code. This resembles usage in objectoriented programming languages like Object Pascal, C++ and Java. PL/SQL refers to a class as an "Abstract Data Type" (ADT) or "User Defined Type" (UDT), and defines it as an Oracle SQL datatype as opposed to a PL/SQL userdefined type, allowing its use in both the Oracle SQL Engine and the Oracle PL/SQL engine. The constructor and methods of an Abstract Data Type are written in PL/SQL. The resulting Abstract Data Type can operate as an object class in PL/SQL. Such objects can also persist as column values in Oracle database tables.

PL/SQL is fundamentally distinct from TransactSQL, despite superficial similarities. Porting code from one to the other usually involves nontrivial work, not only due to the differences in the feature sets of the two languages,[4] but also due to the very significant differences in the way Oracle and SQL Server deal with concurrency and locking. There are software tools available that claim to facilitate porting including Oracle Translation Scratch Editor,[5] CEITON MSSQL/Oracle Compiler [6] and SwisSQL.[7]

The StepSqlite product is a PL/SQL compiler for the popular small database SQLite.
PL/SQL Program Unit

A PL/SQL program unit is one of the following: PL/SQL anonymous block, procedure, function, package specification, package body, trigger, type specification, type body, library. Program units are the PL/SQL source code that is compiled, developed and ultimately executed on the database.

The basic unit of a PL/SQL source program is the block, which groups together related declarations and statements. A PL/SQL block is defined by the keywords DECLARE, BEGIN, EXCEPTION, and END. These keywords divide the block into a declarative part, an executable part, and an exceptionhandling part. The declaration section is optional and may be used to define and initialize constants and variables. If a variable is not initialized then it defaults to NULL value. The optional exceptionhandling part is used to handle run time errors. Only the executable part is required. A block can have a label.

Package

Packages are groups of conceptually linked functions, procedures, variables, PL/SQL table and record TYPE statements, constants, cursors etc. The use of packages promotes reuse of code. Packages are composed of the package specification and an optional package body. The specification is the interface to the application; it declares the types, variables, constants, exceptions, cursors, and subprograms available. The body fully defines cursors and subprograms, and so implements the specification. Two advantages of packages are:

Modular approach, encapsulation/hiding of business logic, security, performance improvement, reusability. They support objectoriented programming features like function overloading and encapsulation.
Using package variables one can declare session level (scoped) variables, since variables declared in the package specification have a session scope.