Beginning Oracle Database 11g Administration From Novice to Professional

CHAPTER 2 SQL AND PL/SQL 31
tool called SQL Developer was introduced in Oracle Database 9i, but the advantage of
a command- line tool such as SQL*Plus is that it can be used to automate tasks—that
is, a series of SQL statements can be placed in a file and automatically executed at prescribed
times.
The SQL*Plus utility can also be used as a simple report- writing tool to produce
neatly formatted reports. The commands in Listing 2-10 cause the entire Quote table to
be listed—notice the use of the clause to sort the data records retrieved by the
SQL query. Listing 2-11 shows the output produced by the commands in Listing 2-10.
Figure 2-4 shows the SQL Developer tool, which I will have more to say about in
Chapter 9.
Listing 2-10. An SQL*Plus Program to Produce a Neatly Formatted Report