(Newbie) - how do I display output?

Hi all,

I have finally gritted my teeth and promised myself that I am going to learn Oracle properly. I am a newbie (though with db experience, primarily SQL Server and Interbase/Firebird).

I have purchased "Beginning Oracle Programming" (Dillon, Beck and Kyte) and have started to work through it. Also have Effective Oracle by Design (Kyte) which will be next (Book recemmendations welcome!).

I started with this example

begin
for cur1 in (select sal from emp)
loop
dbms_output.put_line(cur1.sal ||' is the salary'); end loop;
end;
/

and when I run it SQL Plus says

PL/SQL procedure successfully completed.

But there is no sign of the output. I would like to see the output in my SQL Plus window as per the example in the book.

Also, when I try 'host dir', the screen goes black and then pops back into SQL Plus without my being able to read any of the filenames - I would like to be able to do this also.

I tried changing the SPOOL and PAUSE parameters but that doesn't seem to have worked.

Any hints and/or explanations appreciated. System configuration as per sig. TIA.

Paul...

p.s. what happens if you have SPOOL set to ON but no filename associated with it?

-- 
plinehan  y_a_h_o_o  and d_o_t  com

W2K Pro - Oracle 9.2.0.1.0

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