Developing Personal Oracle7ª for Windows[rm]95 Applications, Second Edition

Copyright © 1997 by Sams Publishing

SECOND EDITION

All rights reserved. No part of this book shall be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without written permission from the publisher. No patent liability is assumed with respect to the use of the information contained herein. Although every precaution has been taken in the preparation of this book, the publisher and author assume no responsibility for errors or omissions. Neither is any liability assumed for damages resulting from the use of the information contained herein. For information, address Sams Publishing, 201 W. 103rd St., Indianapolis, IN 46290.

International Standard Book Number: 0-672-31025-2

Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 96-71491

2000 99 98 97 4 3 2 1

Interpretation of the printing code: the rightmost double-digit number is the year of the book's printing; the rightmost single-digit, the number of the book's printing. For example, a printing code of 97-1 shows that the first printing of the book occurred in 1997.

Composed in AGaramond and MCPdigital by Macmillan Computer Publishing

Printed in the United States of America

All terms mentioned in this book that are known to be trademarks or service marks have been appropriately capitalized. Sams Publishing cannot attest to the accuracy of this information. Use of a term in this book should not be regarded as affecting the validity of any trademark or service mark. Oracle7 is a trademark of Oracle Corporation. Windows is a registered trademark of Microsoft Corporation.

Publisher and President:

Richard K. Swadley

Publishing Manager:

Rosemarie Graham

Director of Editorial Services:

Cindy Morrow

Assistant Marketing Managers:

Kristina Perry
Rachel Wolfe


Acquisitions Editor

Steve Straiger

Development Editor

Todd Bumbalough

Software Development Specialist

John Warriner

Production Editor

June Waldman

Indexer

Erika Millen

Technical Reviewer

Karen Clere

Editorial Coordinator

Katie Wise

Technical Edit Coordinator

Lorraine Schaffer

Resource Coordinator

Deborah Frisby

Editorial Assistants

Carol Ackerman

Andi Richter

Rhonda Tinch-Mize

Copy Writer

Peter Fuller

Production Team Supervisor

Brad Chinn

Acknowledgments

Without the help of many people at Sams Publishing, I would not have been able to complete this book. Many thanks to Steve Straiger, acquisitions editor; Todd Bumbalough, development editor; June Waldman, production editor; and Karen Clere, technical editor.

Last but not least, I want to thank my wife, Joanne, and our children, Josh, Michael, and Daniel, for their loving support for the past several months.

About the Author

David Lockman provides guidance to organizations on the use of Oracle products. He has participated in the design and implementation of client/server applications for a variety of industries. He also provides on-site training on the use of Oracle products and advises organizations on staff development.

At Oracle Corporation, Mr. Lockman was employed as a managing consultant. He was responsible for a consulting group that supported a broad range of projects, including the migration of large legacy databases to Oracle7, performance tuning, and applications development.

You can reach Mr. Lockman via e-mail at dlockman@earthlink.net. He also maintains a Web site at http://home.earthlink.net/~dlockman.

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Introduction

Oracle is the most popular relational database management system in the world. Its popularity is the result of several factors:

What This Book Is About

This book is about a new version of the Oracle relational database management system (RDBMS) called Personal Oracle7. Personal Oracle7 is a version of the Oracle product that runs on top of Microsoft Windows 95 and Windows 3.11. Even though Personal Oracle7 is a PC-based version of the Oracle RDBMS, Personal Oracle7 provides almost the same features that exist in the versions of the Oracle RDBMS for large computer systems. As a result, Personal Oracle7 is an excellent tool for developers who intend to design applications for the Oracle RDBMS.

Who Should Read This Book

This book assumes that you're familiar with Microsoft Windows 95 and that you have some experience with a database--;whether relational or nonrelational.

Who will benefit from this book?

Whats New in This Edition

This edition contains a substantial amount of new material specifically related to the following topics:

Conventions Used in This Book

The following typographic conventions are used in this book: