Re: complete novice

"rob" <rob_at_dsdelft.nl> wrote in message news:<9e2m6g$1uc$1_at_news.tudelft.nl>...
> I don't want to be snooty ;-) but it would help if you mentioned what
> platform you are on.
>
> > Hi , I just installed Oracle8i . It's supposed to have a sample database
 to
> > learn with . I want to learn PL/SQL .
> Buy Oracle PL/SQL Programming from O'Reilly. A very good book to start with.
>
> > Problem is I don't know where the database is and how to view it .
> To check where the datafiles are :
> select file_name from dba_data_files;
> select member from v$logfiles;
> select name from v$controlfile;
> These are the files that make up the database.
>
> > I think I know the directory but not sure . What's the file extension for
 an oracle
> > database ?
> A default database on NT :
> .dbf for datafiles
> .log for the redo logfiles
> .ctl for the controlfiles
> And then there is the configuration file init<sid>.ora, and password file
> pwd<sid>.ora
>
>
> > And how does one view the contents ?
> By using the dictionary tables, like :
> dba_tables
> dba_indexes
> dba_users
> dba_tablespaces
> You can get a listing of all dictionary objects by
> SQL> select * from tab;
>
> > In order to run some SQL commands I have to know what fields are in the
> tables etc .
> dba_tab_columns
> or in sqlplus : desc table_name.
> etc.
>
> You can always get a GUI tool like TOAD or Oracle Enterprise Manager to
> explore the database.
>
> HTH
> Rob.

Take a look at the Adminstrators Guide Chapter 1 page 1-28 "Loading PL/SQL Demonstrations". It explains how to load demo database tables and where some PL/SQL examples that query these. Received on Thu May 24 2001 - 23:02:41 CEST