What Oracle book(s) would you recommend?

Can anyone recommend a book (plus author(s), and if possible ISBN no.) that covers Oracle UNIX in a concise way. I only know enough bits of SQL to just get away with it, including PRO*C (with my good C knowledge).

I'd like something on the lines of a Core book (e.g. Core Visual Basic) or like the language guides that used to (or still may do) come with every compiler you bought. I find that most tutorial books are a bit (far too?) chatty.

So, is there a book that covers/explains the following areas...

1. PL/SQL language, including compilation phases perhaps (.src -> .sql -> .plb)
2. PRO*C language
3. Function reference (preferably includes differences between v7 and v8)
4. SQL prompt guide/command reference, e.g. setting page size (Is this SQL*Plus? :-) )
5. SQL statement optimization guidelines (apparently there are 2 sections on this in the Oracle tune-up manual)
6. System concepts (tablespaces, extents, RBS, re-do logs, how the data is physically/actually stored on disk etc...)

System concepts is probably the least important of the lot, though I'd like to have an understanding of what's going on, even though I'm just programming. (For example why archive the re-do logs when you can just add one after the other? For file compression perhaps?)

1. to 3), most probably 4), are the most essential.

I've seen 85 pound books on Oracle stuff!! Obviously I'd like the book to be as cheap as possible. But if the cheaper option is to have 2 (or more! :-( ) books rather than 1, then include them in your recommendation!

Thanks,
Gervase Received on Fri Mar 26 1999 - 19:20:45 CST