Book excerpt: This integrated learning solution teaches all the Oracle PL/SQL skills you need, hands-on, through real-world labs, extensive examples, exercises, and projects! Completely updated for Oracle 11g, Oracle PL/SQL by Example , Fourth Edition covers all the fundamentals, from PL/SQL syntax and program control through packages and Oracle 11g’s significantly improved triggers. One step at a time, you’ll walk through every key task, discovering the most important PL/SQL programming techniques on your own. Building on your hands-on learning, the authors share solutions that offer deeper insights and proven best practices. End-of-chapter projects bring together all the techniques you’ve learned, strengthening your understanding through real-world practice. This book’s approach fully reflects the authors’ award-winning experience teaching PL/SQL programming to professionals at Columbia University. New database developers and DBAs can use its step-by-step instructions to get productive fast; experienced PL/SQL programmers can use this book as a practical solutions reference. Coverage includes • Mastering basic PL/SQL concepts and general programming language fundamentals, and understanding SQL’s role in PL/SQL • Using conditional and iterative program control techniques, including the new CONTINUE and CONTINUE WHEN statements • Efficiently handling errors and exceptions • Working with cursors and triggers, including Oracle 11g’s powerful new compound triggers • Using stored procedures, functions, and packages to write modular code that other programs can execute • Working with collections, object-relational features, native dynamic SQL, bulk SQL, and other advanced PL/SQL capabilities • Handy reference appendices: PL/SQL formatting guide, sample database schema, ANSI SQL standards reference, and more