Oracle® Database SQL Reference ppt

Oracle® Database
SQL Reference
10g Release 2 (10.2)
B14200-02
December 2005
Oracle Database SQL Reference, 10g Release 2 (10.2)
B14200-02
Copyright © 1996, 2005 Oracle. All rights reserved.
Primary Author: Diana Lorentz
Contributor: Special thanks to Lex de Haan, who has for over ten years been a great source of information
and inspiration in the management of this book.
Contributors: Sundeep Abraham, Drew Adams, Patrick Amor, Geeta Arora, Lance Ashdown, Hermann
Baer, Vladimir Barriere, Subhransu Basu, Mark Bauer, Tammy Bednar, Eric Belden, Tolga Bozkaya, Bill
Bridge, Allen Brumm, Mark Callaghan, Thomas Chang, Timothy Chien, Dinesh Das, Jay Davison, Steve
Fogel, Amit Ganesh, John Haydu, Min-Hank Ho, Lilian Hobbs, Chandrasekharan Iyer, Ken Jacobs, Bob
Jenkins, Ramkumar Krishnan, Muralidhar Krishnaprasad, Joydip Kundu, Paul Lane, Simon Law, Bill Lee,
Geoff Lee, Jeff Levinger, Nina Lewis, Brian Lin, Peter Linsley, Zhen Liu, Bryn Llewellyn, Rich Long,
Qianrong Ma, Anand Manikutty, Paul Manning, Robert McGuirk, Jim Melton, Mughees Minhas, Michael
Möller, Daniel Morgan, Ari Mozes, Niloy Mukherjee, Chuck Murray, Sujatha Muthulingam, Ananth
Raghavan, Kathy Rich, Antonio Romero, John Russell, Vivian Schupmann, Cathy Shea, Vikram Shukla,
Bipul Sinha, Mike Stewart, Sankar Subramanian, Srividya Tata, Kathy Taylor, Barry Trute, Randy Urbano,
Rama Vissapragada, Douglas Voss, Daniel Wong, Jianping Yang, Adiel Yoaz, Qin Yu, Tsae-Feng Yu, Fred
Zemke, Weiran Zhang
The Programs (which include both the software and documentation) contain proprietary information; they
are provided under a license agreement containing restrictions on use and disclosure and are also protected
by copyright, patent, and other intellectual and industrial property laws. Reverse engineering, disassembly,
or decompilation of the Programs, except to the extent required to obtain interoperability with other
independently created software or as specified by law, is prohibited.
The information contained in this document is subject to change without notice. If you find any problems in
the documentation, please report them to us in writing. This document is not warranted to be error-free.
Except as may be expressly permitted in your license agreement for these Programs, no part of these

Programs may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, for any
purpose.
If the Programs are delivered to the United States Government or anyone licensing or using the Programs on
behalf of the United States Government, the following notice is applicable:
U.S. GOVERNMENT RIGHTS Programs, software, databases, and related documentation and technical data
delivered to U.S. Government customers are "commercial computer software" or "commercial technical data"
pursuant to the applicable Federal Acquisition Regulation and agency-specific supplemental regulations. As
such, use, duplication, disclosure, modification, and adaptation of the Programs, including documentation
and technical data, shall be subject to the licensing restrictions set forth in the applicable Oracle license
agreement, and, to the extent applicable, the additional rights set forth in FAR 52.227-19, Commercial
Computer Software—Restricted Rights (June 1987). Oracle Corporation, 500 Oracle Parkway, Redwood City,
CA 94065
The Programs are not intended for use in any nuclear, aviation, mass transit, medical, or other inherently
dangerous applications. It shall be the licensee's responsibility to take all appropriate fail-safe, backup,
redundancy and other measures to ensure the safe use of such applications if the Programs are used for such
purposes, and we disclaim liability for any damages caused by such use of the Programs.
Oracle, JD Edwards, PeopleSoft, and Retek are registered trademarks of Oracle Corporation and/or its
affiliates. Other names may be trademarks of their respective owners.
The Programs may provide links to Web sites and access to content, products, and services from third
parties. Oracle is not responsible for the availability of, or any content provided on, third-party Web sites.
You bear all risks associated with the use of such content. If you choose to purchase any products or services
from a third party, the relationship is directly between you and the third party. Oracle is not responsible for:
(a) the quality of third-party products or services; or (b) fulfilling any of the terms of the agreement with the
third party, including delivery of products or services and warranty obligations related to purchased
products or services. Oracle is not responsible for any loss or damage of any sort that you may incur from
dealing with any third party.
iii
Contents
Preface xxi
Intended Audience xxi

Documentation Accessibility xxi
Related Documents xxii
Conventions xxii
What's New in the SQL Reference? xxiii
Oracle Database 10g Release 2 New Features in the SQL Reference xxiii
Oracle Database 10g Release 1 New Features in the SQL Reference xxv
1 Introduction to Oracle SQL
History of SQL 1-1
SQL Standards 1-1
How SQL Works 1-2
Common Language for All Relational Databases 1-3
Recent Enhancements 1-3
Lexical Conventions 1-3
Tools Support 1-4
2 Basic Elements of Oracle SQL
Datatypes 2-1
Oracle Built-in Datatypes 2-6
CHAR Datatype 2-8
NCHAR Datatype 2-9
NVARCHAR2 Datatype 2-9
VARCHAR2 Datatype 2-9
VARCHAR Datatype 2-10
NUMBER Datatype 2-10
Floating-Point Numbers 2-11
BINARY_FLOAT 2-12
BINARY_DOUBLE 2-12
Numeric Precedence 2-13
DATE Datatype 2-16
Using Julian Days 2-16
TIMESTAMP Datatype 2-17

iv
TIMESTAMP WITH TIME ZONE Datatype 2-17
TIMESTAMP WITH LOCAL TIME ZONE Datatype 2-18
INTERVAL YEAR TO MONTH Datatype 2-18
INTERVAL DAY TO SECOND Datatype 2-19
Datetime/Interval Arithmetic 2-19
Support for Daylight Saving Times 2-21
Datetime and Interval Examples 2-22
RAW and LONG RAW Datatypes 2-23
BFILE Datatype 2-26
BLOB Datatype 2-26
CLOB Datatype 2-27
NCLOB Datatype 2-27
Restricted Rowids 2-27
Extended Rowids 2-28
Compatibility and Migration 2-28
UROWID Datatype 2-28
ANSI, DB2, and SQL/DS Datatypes 2-29
User-Defined Types 2-30
Object Types 2-30
REF Datatypes 2-31
Varrays 2-31
Nested Tables 2-31
Oracle-Supplied Types 2-32
Any Types 2-32
ANYTYPE 2-32
ANYDATA 2-32
ANYDATASET 2-32
XML Types 2-33
XMLType 2-33

URI Datatypes 2-33
URIFactory Package 2-34
Spatial Types 2-34
SDO_GEOMETRY 2-35
SDO_TOPO_GEOMETRY 2-35
SDO_GEORASTER 2-35
Media Types 2-35
ORDAudio 2-36
ORDImage 2-36
ORDImageSignature 2-36
ORDVideo 2-36
ORDDoc 2-36
SI_StillImage 2-36
SI_Color 2-36
SI_AverageColor 2-36
SI_ColorHistogram 2-36
SI_PositionalColor 2-36
SI_Texture 2-36
v
SI_FeatureList 2-37
Expression Filter Type 2-37
Expression 2-37
Datatype Comparison Rules 2-37
Numeric Values 2-37
Date Values 2-37
Character Values 2-37
Object Values 2-40
Varrays and Nested Tables 2-40
Data Conversion 2-40
Implicit and Explicit Data Conversion 2-40

Implicit Data Conversion 2-41
Implicit Data Conversion Examples 2-43
Explicit Data Conversion 2-43
Literals 2-44
Text Literals 2-45
Numeric Literals 2-46
Integer Literals 2-46
NUMBER and Floating-Point Literals 2-47
Datetime Literals 2-49
Interval Literals 2-51
INTERVAL YEAR TO MONTH 2-52
INTERVAL DAY TO SECOND 2-53
Format Models 2-54
Number Format Models 2-55
Number Format Elements 2-56
Datetime Format Models 2-58
Datetime Format Elements 2-59
Uppercase Letters in Date Format Elements 2-59
Punctuation and Character Literals in Datetime Format Models 2-59
Datetime Format Elements and Globalization Support 2-62
ISO Standard Date Format Elements 2-62
The RR Datetime Format Element 2-63
RR Datetime Format Examples 2-63
Datetime Format Element Suffixes 2-64
Format Model Modifiers 2-64
Format Model Examples 2-65
String-to-Date Conversion Rules 2-67
XML Format Model 2-67
Nulls 2-68
Nulls in SQL Functions 2-69

Nulls with Comparison Conditions 2-69
Nulls in Conditions 2-69
Comments 2-70
Comments Within SQL Statements 2-70
Comments on Schema Objects 2-71
Using Hints 2-71
vi
Alphabetical Listing of Hints 2-75
ALL_ROWS Hint 2-75
APPEND Hint 2-75
CACHE Hint 2-76
CLUSTER Hint 2-76
CURSOR_SHARING_EXACT Hint 2-76
DRIVING_SITE Hint 2-77
DYNAMIC_SAMPLING Hint 2-77
FACT Hint 2-78
FIRST_ROWS Hint 2-78
FULL Hint 2-78
HASH Hint 2-79
INDEX Hint 2-79
INDEX_ASC Hint 2-80
INDEX_COMBINE Hint 2-80
INDEX_DESC Hint 2-80
INDEX_FFS Hint 2-81
INDEX_JOIN Hint 2-81
INDEX_SS Hint 2-81
INDEX_SS_ASC Hint 2-82
INDEX_SS_DESC Hint 2-82
LEADING Hint 2-83
MERGE Hint 2-83

MODEL_MIN_ANALYSIS Hint 2-83
NOAPPEND Hint 2-84
NOCACHE Hint 2-84
NO_EXPAND Hint 2-84
NO_FACT Hint 2-85
NO_INDEX Hint 2-85
NO_INDEX_FFS Hint 2-85
NO_INDEX_SS Hint 2-86
NO_MERGE Hint 2-86
NO_PARALLEL Hint 2-86
NOPARALLEL Hint 2-87
NO_PARALLEL_INDEX Hint 2-87
NOPARALLEL_INDEX Hint 2-87
NO_PUSH_PRED Hint 2-87
NO_PUSH_SUBQ Hint 2-87
NO_PX_JOIN_FILTER Hint 2-88
NO_REWRITE Hint 2-88
NOREWRITE Hint 2-88
NO_QUERY_TRANSFORMATION Hint 2-88
NO_STAR_TRANSFORMATION Hint 2-88
NO_UNNEST Hint 2-88
NO_USE_HASH Hint 2-89
NO_USE_MERGE Hint 2-89
NO_USE_NL Hint 2-89
vii
NO_XML_QUERY_REWRITE Hint 2-89
ORDERED Hint 2-90
PARALLEL Hint 2-90
PARALLEL_INDEX Hint 2-91
PQ_DISTRIBUTE Hint 2-91

PUSH_PRED Hint 2-92
PUSH_SUBQ Hint 2-93
PX_JOIN_FILTER Hint 2-93
QB_NAME Hint 2-93
REWRITE Hint 2-94
RULE Hint 2-94
STAR_TRANSFORMATION Hint 2-94
UNNEST Hint 2-95
USE_CONCAT Hint 2-95
USE_HASH Hint 2-96
USE_MERGE Hint 2-96
USE_NL Hint 2-96
USE_NL_WITH_INDEX Hint 2-97
Database Objects 2-97
Schema Objects 2-97
Nonschema Objects 2-98
Schema Object Names and Qualifiers 2-98
Schema Object Naming Rules 2-98
Schema Object Naming Examples 2-101
Schema Object Naming Guidelines 2-102
Syntax for Schema Objects and Parts in SQL Statements 2-102
How Oracle Database Resolves Schema Object References 2-103
Referring to Objects in Other Schemas 2-104
Referring to Objects in Remote Databases 2-104
Creating Database Links 2-104
Database Link Names 2-104
Username and Password 2-105
Database Connect String 2-105
Referring to Database Links 2-105
Referring to Partitioned Tables and Indexes 2-106

Referring to Object Type Attributes and Methods 2-107
3 Pseudocolumns
Hierarchical Query Pseudocolumns 3-1
CONNECT_BY_ISCYCLE Pseudocolumn 3-1
CONNECT_BY_ISLEAF Pseudocolumn 3-2
LEVEL Pseudocolumn 3-2
Sequence Pseudocolumns 3-3
Where to Use Sequence Values 3-3
How to Use Sequence Values 3-4
Version Query Pseudocolumns 3-5
COLUMN_VALUE Pseudocolumn 3-6
viii
OBJECT_ID Pseudocolumn 3-7
OBJECT_VALUE Pseudocolumn 3-7
ORA_ROWSCN Pseudocolumn 3-8
ROWID Pseudocolumn 3-8
ROWNUM Pseudocolumn 3-9
XMLDATA Pseudocolumn 3-10
4 Operators
About SQL Operators 4-1
Unary and Binary Operators 4-2
Operator Precedence 4-2
Arithmetic Operators 4-3
Concatenation Operator 4-3
Hierarchical Query Operators 4-5
PRIOR 4-5
CONNECT_BY_ROOT 4-5
Set Operators 4-5
Multiset Operators 4-5
MULTISET EXCEPT 4-6

MULTISET INTERSECT 4-7
MULTISET UNION 4-8
User-Defined Operators 4-9
5 Functions
SQL Functions 5-1
Single-Row Functions 5-3
Numeric Functions 5-3
Character Functions Returning Character Values 5-3
NLS Character Functions 5-4
Character Functions Returning Number Values 5-4
Datetime Functions 5-4
General Comparison Functions 5-5
Conversion Functions 5-5
Large Object Functions 5-6
Collection Functions 5-6
Hierarchical Function 5-6
Data Mining Functions 5-6
XML Functions 5-7
Encoding and Decoding Functions 5-7
NULL-Related Functions 5-7
Environment and Identifier Functions 5-8
Aggregate Functions 5-8
Analytic Functions 5-9
Object Reference Functions 5-14
Model Functions 5-15
Alphabetical Listing of SQL Functions 5-15
ABS 5-15
ix
ACOS 5-16
ADD_MONTHS 5-16

APPENDCHILDXML 5-17
ASCIISTR 5-18
ASCII 5-18
ASIN 5-19
ATAN 5-19
ATAN2 5-20
AV G 5-20
BFILENAME 5-21
BIN_TO_NUM 5-22
BITAND 5-23
CARDINALITY 5-24
CAST 5-24
CEIL 5-27
CHARTOROWID 5-27
CHR 5-28
CLUSTER_ID 5-29
CLUSTER_PROBABILITY 5-30
CLUSTER_SET 5-32
COALESCE 5-34
COLLECT 5-35
COMPOSE 5-36
CONCAT 5-36
CONVERT 5-37
CORR 5-38
CORR_* 5-39
CORR_S 5-40
CORR_K 5-41
COS 5-41
COSH 5-42
COUNT 5-42

COVAR_POP 5-44
COVAR_SAMP 5-45
CUME_DIST 5-46
CURRENT_DATE 5-47
CURRENT_TIMESTAMP 5-48
CV 5-49
DBTIMEZONE 5-50
DECODE 5-51
DECOMPOSE 5-52
DELETEXML 5-53
DENSE_RANK 5-54
DEPTH 5-55
DEREF 5-56
DUMP 5-57
EMPTY_BLOB, EMPTY_CLOB 5-58
x
EXISTSNODE 5-58
EXP 5-59
EXTRACT (datetime) 5-60
EXTRACT (XML) 5-62
EXTRACTVALUE 5-63
FEATURE_ID 5-63
FEATURE_SET 5-65
FEATURE_VALUE 5-67
FIRST 5-68
FIRST_VALUE 5-70
FLOOR 5-71
FROM_TZ 5-71
GREATEST 5-72
GROUP_ID 5-72

GROUPING 5-73
GROUPING_ID 5-74
HEXTORAW 5-75
INITCAP 5-76
INSERTCHILDXML 5-76
INSERTXMLBEFORE 5-78
INSTR 5-79
ITERATION_NUMBER 5-80
LAG 5-81
LAST 5-82
LAST_DAY 5-83
LAST_VALUE 5-83
LEAD 5-85
LEAST 5-86
LENGTH 5-86
LN 5-87
LNNVL 5-88
LOCALTIMESTAMP 5-89
LOG 5-90
LOWER 5-90
LPAD 5-91
LTRIM 5-91
MAKE_REF 5-92
MAX 5-93
MEDIAN 5-94
MIN 5-96
MOD 5-97
MONTHS_BETWEEN 5-98
NANVL 5-98
NCHR 5-99

NEW_TIME 5-100
NEXT_DAY 5-101
NLS_CHARSET_DECL_LEN 5-101
xi
NLS_CHARSET_ID 5-102
NLS_CHARSET_NAME 5-102
NLS_INITCAP 5-103
NLS_LOWER 5-104
NLSSORT 5-104
NLS_UPPER 5-106
NTILE 5-106
NULLIF 5-107
NUMTODSINTERVAL 5-108
NUMTOYMINTERVAL 5-109
NVL 5-110
NVL2 5-111
ORA_HASH 5-112
PATH 5-112
PERCENT_RANK 5-113
PERCENTILE_CONT 5-114
PERCENTILE_DISC 5-116
POWER 5-118
POWERMULTISET 5-118
POWERMULTISET_BY_CARDINALITY 5-119
PREDICTION 5-120
PREDICTION_COST 5-122
PREDICTION_DETAILS 5-123
PREDICTION_PROBABILITY 5-124
PREDICTION_SET 5-126
PRESENTNNV 5-128

PRESENTV 5-129
PREVIOUS 5-130
RANK 5-131
RATIO_TO_REPORT 5-133
RAWTOHEX 5-133
RAWTONHEX 5-134
REF 5-134
REFTOHEX 5-135
REGEXP_INSTR 5-136
REGEXP_REPLACE 5-138
REGEXP_SUBSTR 5-140
REGR_ (Linear Regression) Functions 5-142
REMAINDER 5-147
REPLACE 5-148
ROUND (number) 5-148
ROUND (date) 5-149
ROW_NUMBER 5-150
ROWIDTOCHAR 5-151
ROWIDTONCHAR 5-151
RPAD 5-152
RTRIM 5-153
xii
SCN_TO_TIMESTAMP 5-153
SESSIONTIMEZONE 5-154
SET 5-155
SIGN 5-155
SIN 5-156
SINH 5-156
SOUNDEX 5-157
SQRT 5-158

STATS_BINOMIAL_TEST 5-159
STATS_CROSSTAB 5-160
STATS_F_TEST 5-161
STATS_KS_TEST 5-162
STATS_MODE 5-162
STATS_MW_TEST 5-164
STATS_ONE_WAY_ANOVA 5-165
STATS_T_TEST_* 5-166
STATS_T_TEST_ONE 5-167
STATS_T_TEST_PAIRED 5-167
STATS_T_TEST_INDEP and STATS_T_TEST_INDEPU 5-168
STATS_WSR_TEST 5-169
STDDEV 5-170
STDDEV_POP 5-171
STDDEV_SAMP 5-172
SUBSTR 5-173
SUM 5-174
SYS_CONNECT_BY_PATH 5-176
SYS_CONTEXT 5-176
SYS_DBURIGEN 5-181
SYS_EXTRACT_UTC 5-182
SYS_GUID 5-182
SYS_TYPEID 5-183
SYS_XMLAGG 5-184
SYS_XMLGEN 5-185
SYSDATE 5-185
SYSTIMESTAMP 5-186
TAN 5-186
TANH 5-187
TIMESTAMP_TO_SCN 5-187

TO_BINARY_DOUBLE 5-188
TO_BINARY_FLOAT 5-189
TO_CHAR (character) 5-190
TO_CHAR (datetime) 5-191
TO_CHAR (number) 5-193
TO_CLOB 5-194
TO_DATE 5-195
TO_DSINTERVAL 5-196
TO_LOB 5-196
xiii
TO_MULTI_BYTE 5-197
TO_NCHAR (character) 5-198
TO_NCHAR (datetime) 5-198
TO_NCHAR (number) 5-199
TO_NCLOB 5-199
TO_NUMBER 5-200
TO_SINGLE_BYTE 5-201
TO_TIMESTAMP 5-201
TO_TIMESTAMP_TZ 5-202
TO_YMINTERVAL 5-203
TRANSLATE 5-203
TRANSLATE USING 5-204
TREAT 5-206
TRIM 5-207
TRUNC (number) 5-208
TRUNC (date) 5-208
TZ_OFFSET 5-209
UID 5-210
UNISTR 5-210
UPDATEXML 5-211

UPPER 5-212
USER 5-212
USERENV 5-213
VA L U E 5-214
VA R _ P O P 5-214
VA R _ S A M P 5-216
VARIANCE 5-216
VSIZE 5-218
WIDTH_BUCKET 5-218
XMLAGG 5-220
XMLCDATA 5-221
XMLCOLATTVAL 5-222
XMLCOMMENT 5-223
XMLCONCAT 5-223
XMLELEMENT 5-224
XMLFOREST 5-226
XMLPARSE 5-227
XMLPI 5-228
XMLQUERY 5-228
XMLROOT 5-230
XMLSEQUENCE 5-230
XMLSERIALIZE 5-232
XMLTABLE 5-232
XMLTRANSFORM 5-234
ROUND and TRUNC Date Functions 5-235
User-Defined Functions 5-236
Prerequisites 5-237
xiv
Name Precedence 5-237
Naming Conventions 5-238

6 Expressions
About SQL Expressions 6-1
Simple Expressions 6-3
Compound Expressions 6-4
CASE Expressions 6-5
CURSOR Expressions 6-6
Datetime Expressions 6-8
Function Expressions 6-9
Interval Expressions 6-10
Object Access Expressions 6-10
Scalar Subquery Expressions 6-11
Model Expressions 6-11
Type Constructor Expressions 6-13
Variable Expressions 6-15
Expression Lists 6-15
7 Conditions
About SQL Conditions 7-1
Condition Precedence 7-3
Comparison Conditions 7-4
Simple Comparison Conditions 7-5
Group Comparison Conditions 7-6
Floating-Point Conditions 7-7
Logical Conditions 7-7
Model Conditions 7-9
IS ANY Condition 7-9
IS PRESENT Condition 7-10
Multiset Conditions 7-11
IS A SET Condition 7-11
IS EMPTY Condition 7-11
MEMBER Condition 7-12

SUBMULTISET Condition 7-13
Pattern-matching Conditions 7-14
LIKE Condition 7-14
REGEXP_LIKE Condition 7-17
Range Conditions 7-18
Null Conditions 7-19
XML Conditions 7-19
EQUALS_PATH Condition 7-19
UNDER_PATH Condition 7-20
Compound Conditions 7-21
EXISTS Condition 7-21
IN Condition 7-21
IS OF type Condition 7-23
xv
8 Common SQL DDL Clauses
allocate_extent_clause 8-2
constraint 8-4
deallocate_unused_clause 8-26
file_specification 8-28
logging_clause 8-36
parallel_clause 8-39
physical_attributes_clause 8-42
size_clause 8-45
storage_clause 8-46
9 SQL Queries and Subqueries
About Queries and Subqueries 9-1
Creating Simple Queries 9-2
Hierarchical Queries 9-2
Hierarchical Query Examples 9-5
The UNION [ALL], INTERSECT, MINUS Operators 9-7

Sorting Query Results 9-9
Joins 9-10
Join Conditions 9-10
Equijoins 9-10
Self Joins 9-11
Cartesian Products 9-11
Inner Joins 9-11
Outer Joins 9-11
Antijoins 9-13
Semijoins 9-13
Using Subqueries 9-13
Unnesting of Nested Subqueries 9-14
Selecting from the DUAL Table 9-15
Distributed Queries 9-15
10 SQL Statements: ALTER CLUSTER to ALTER JAVA
Types of SQL Statements 10-1
Data Definition Language (DDL) Statements 10-1
Data Manipulation Language (DML) Statements 10-2
Transaction Control Statements 10-3
Session Control Statements 10-3
System Control Statement 10-3
Embedded SQL Statements 10-3
How the SQL Statement Chapters are Organized 10-3
ALTER CLUSTER 10-5
ALTER DATABASE 10-9
ALTER DIMENSION 10-45
ALTER DISKGROUP 10-48
ALTER FUNCTION 10-61
xvi
ALTER INDEX 10-64

ALTER INDEXTYPE 10-82
ALTER JAVA 10-84
11 SQL Statements: ALTER MATERIALIZED VIEW to ALTER SYSTEM
ALTER MATERIALIZED VIEW 11-2
ALTER MATERIALIZED VIEW LOG 11-15
ALTER OPERATOR 11-21
ALTER OUTLINE 11-24
ALTER PACKAGE 11-26
ALTER PROCEDURE 11-29
ALTER PROFILE 11-32
ALTER RESOURCE COST 11-35
ALTER ROLE 11-38
ALTER ROLLBACK SEGMENT 11-40
ALTER SEQUENCE 11-43
ALTER SESSION 11-45
Initialization Parameters and ALTER SESSION 11-50
Session Parameters and ALTER SESSION 11-53
ALTER SYSTEM 11-60
Initialization Parameters and ALTER SYSTEM 11-72
System Parameters and ALTER SYSTEM 11-83
Shared Server Parameters 11-83
12 SQL Statements: ALTER TABLE to ALTER TABLESPACE
ALTER TABLE 12-2
ALTER TABLESPACE 12-79
13 SQL Statements: ALTER TRIGGER to COMMIT
ALTER TRIGGER 13-2
ALTER TYPE 13-5
ALTER USER 13-18
ALTER VIEW 13-25
ANALYZE 13-27

ASSOCIATE STATISTICS 13-38
AUDIT 13-42
CALL 13-53
COMMENT 13-57
COMMIT 13-59
14 SQL Statements: CREATE CLUSTER to CREATE JAVA
CREATE CLUSTER 14-2
CREATE CONTEXT 14-9
CREATE CONTROLFILE 14-12
CREATE DATABASE 14-18
CREATE DATABASE LINK 14-31
xvii
CREATE DIMENSION 14-36
CREATE DIRECTORY 14-42
CREATE DISKGROUP 14-44
CREATE FUNCTION 14-48
CREATE INDEX 14-58
CREATE INDEXTYPE 14-81
CREATE JAVA 14-84
15 SQL Statements: CREATE LIBRARY to CREATE SPFILE
CREATE LIBRARY 15-2
CREATE MATERIALIZED VIEW 15-4
CREATE MATERIALIZED VIEW LOG 15-25
CREATE OPERATOR 15-32
CREATE OUTLINE 15-35
CREATE PACKAGE 15-39
CREATE PACKAGE BODY 15-43
CREATE PFILE 15-47
CREATE PROCEDURE 15-49
CREATE PROFILE 15-54

CREATE RESTORE POINT 15-60
CREATE ROLE 15-63
CREATE ROLLBACK SEGMENT 15-66
CREATE SCHEMA 15-69
CREATE SEQUENCE 15-71
CREATE SPFILE 15-75
16 SQL Statements: CREATE SYNONYM to CREATE TRIGGER
CREATE SYNONYM 16-2
CREATE TABLE 16-6
CREATE TABLESPACE 16-61
CREATE TRIGGER 16-75
17 SQL Statements: CREATE TYPE to DROP ROLLBACK SEGMENT
CREATE TYPE 17-3
CREATE TYPE BODY 17-21
CREATE USER 17-26
CREATE VIEW 17-32
DELETE 17-43
DISASSOCIATE STATISTICS 17-51
DROP CLUSTER 17-53
DROP CONTEXT 17-55
DROP DATABASE 17-56
DROP DATABASE LINK 17-57
DROP DIMENSION 17-58
DROP DIRECTORY 17-59
DROP DISKGROUP 17-60
xviii
DROP FUNCTION 17-62
DROP INDEX 17-64
DROP INDEXTYPE 17-66
DROP JAVA 17-67

DROP LIBRARY 17-68
DROP MATERIALIZED VIEW 17-69
DROP MATERIALIZED VIEW LOG 17-71
DROP OPERATOR 17-73
DROP OUTLINE 17-74
DROP PACKAGE 17-75
DROP PROCEDURE 17-77
DROP PROFILE 17-78
DROP RESTORE POINT 17-79
DROP ROLE 17-80
DROP ROLLBACK SEGMENT 17-81
18
SQL Statements: DROP SEQUENCE to ROLLBACK
DROP SEQUENCE 18-2
DROP SYNONYM 18-3
DROP TABLE 18-5
DROP TABLESPACE 18-9
DROP TRIGGER 18-12
DROP TYPE 18-13
DROP TYPE BODY 18-15
DROP USER 18-16
DROP VIEW 18-18
EXPLAIN PLAN 18-20
FLASHBACK DATABASE 18-23
FLASHBACK TABLE 18-26
GRANT 18-32
INSERT 18-51
LOCK TABLE 18-68
MERGE 18-71
NOAUDIT 18-76

PURGE 18-80
RENAME 18-82
REVOKE 18-84
ROLLBACK 18-92
19 SQL Statements: SAVEPOINT to UPDATE
SAVEPOINT 19-2
SELECT 19-4
SET CONSTRAINT[S] 19-48
SET ROLE 19-50
SET TRANSACTION 19-52
TRUNCATE 19-55
xix
UPDATE 19-59
A How to Read Syntax Diagrams
Graphic Syntax Diagrams A-1
Required Keywords and Parameters A-2
Optional Keywords and Parameters A-3
Syntax Loops A-3
Multipart Diagrams A-4
Database Objects A-4
B Oracle and Standard SQL
ANSI Standards B-1
ISO Standards B-2
Oracle Compliance To Core SQL:2003 B-3
Oracle Support for Optional Features of SQL/Foundation:2003 B-8
Oracle Compliance with SQL/CLI:2003 B-15
Oracle Compliance with SQL/PSM:2003 B-15
Oracle Compliance with SQL/MED:2003 B-15
Oracle Compliance with SQL/XML:2005 B-16
Oracle Compliance with FIPS 127-2 B-22

Oracle Extensions to Standard SQL B-24
Character Set Support B-24
C Oracle Regular Expression Support
Multilingual Regular Expression Syntax C-1
Regular Expression Operator Multilingual Enhancements C-2
Perl-influenced Extensions in Oracle Regular Expressions C-3
D Oracle Database Reserved Words
E Examples
Using Extensible Indexing E-1
Using XML in SQL Statements E-8
Index
xx
xxi
Preface
This reference contains a complete description of the Structured Query Language
(SQL) used to manage information in an Oracle Database. Oracle SQL is a superset of
the American National Standards Institute (ANSI) and the International Standards
Organization (ISO) SQL:1999 standard.
This Preface contains these topics:
■ Intended Audience
■ Documentation Accessibility
■ Related Documents
■ Conventions
Intended Audience
The Oracle Database SQL Reference is intended for all users of Oracle SQL.
Documentation Accessibility
Our goal is to make Oracle products, services, and supporting documentation
accessible, with good usability, to the disabled community. To that end, our
documentation includes features that make information available to users of assistive
technology. This documentation is available in HTML format, and contains markup to

facilitate access by the disabled community. Accessibility standards will continue to
evolve over time, and Oracle is actively engaged with other market-leading
technology vendors to address technical obstacles so that our documentation can be
accessible to all of our customers. For more information, visit the Oracle Accessibility
Program Web site at
/>Accessibility of Code Examples in Documentation
Screen readers may not always correctly read the code examples in this document. The
conventions for writing code require that closing braces should appear on an
otherwise empty line; however, some screen readers may not always read a line of text
that consists solely of a bracket or brace.
Accessibility of Links to External Web Sites in Documentation
This documentation may contain links to Web sites of other companies or
organizations that Oracle does not own or control. Oracle neither evaluates nor makes
any representations regarding the accessibility of these Web sites.
xxii
TTY Access to Oracle Support Services
Oracle provides dedicated Text Telephone (TTY) access to Oracle Support Services
within the United States of America 24 hours a day, seven days a week. For TTY
support, call 800.446.2398.
Related Documents
For more information, see these Oracle resources:
■ Oracle Database PL/SQL User's Guide and Reference for information on PL/SQL, the
procedural language extension to Oracle SQL
■ Pro*C/C++ Programmer's Guide, Oracle SQL*Module for Ada Programmer's Guide, and
the Pro*COBOL Programmer's Guide for detailed descriptions of Oracle embedded
SQL
Many of the examples in this book use the sample schemas, which are installed by
default when you select the Basic Installation option with an Oracle Database
installation. Refer to Oracle Database Sample Schemas for information on how these
schemas were created and how you can use them yourself.

Conventions
The following text conventions are used in this document:
Convention Meaning
boldface Boldface type indicates graphical user interface elements associated
with an action, or terms defined in text or the glossary.
italic Italic type indicates book titles, emphasis, or placeholder variables for
which you supply particular values.
monospace Monospace type indicates commands within a paragraph, URLs, code
in examples, text that appears on the screen, or text that you enter.
xxiii
What's New in the SQL Reference?
This section describes new features of Oracle Database 10g and provides pointers to
additional information.
For information on features that were new in earlier versions of Oracle Database,
please refer to the documentation for the earlier release.
Oracle Database 10g Release 2 New Features in the SQL Reference
The following top-level SQL statements are new or enhanced in this release:
■ ALTER DATABASE on page 10-9 has been enhanced as follows:
– New syntax in the standby_database_clauses lets you bring a logical
standby database to the same state as the primary database.
– Additional new syntax in the standby_database_clauses lets you
convert a primary database outside the Data Guard environment into a
physical standby database.
– New syntax in the managed_standby_recovery clause lets you create a
logical standby database from the physical standby database.
– New syntax in the database_file_clauses lets you rename tempfiles as
well as datafiles and redo log files.
■ ALTER DISKGROUP on page 10-48 has new syntax that lets you specify when in
the course of a diskgroup rebalance operation control should be returned to the
user.

■ ALTER SYSTEM on page 11-60 has new syntax that lets you load information from
the server wallet into memory for database access, and to generate a new
transparent database encryption master key:
■ ALTER TABLESPACE on page 12-79 contains new syntax that lets you drop an
empty datafile or tempfile from the data dictionary and remove it from the
operating system.
■ ALTER USER on page 13-18 contains new syntax that lets you expose a user to
proxy use by enterprise users.
■ COMMIT on page 13-59 contains a new WRITE clause that lets you specify the
priority with which the redo information generated by the commit operation is
written to the redo log.
■ CREATE DATABASE LINK on page 14-31 has new syntax that helps Data Pump
provide an encoded password for the database link during import of data.
xxiv
■ CREATE DIMENSION on page 14-36 and ALTER DIMENSION on page 10-45
contain new syntax that lets you preserve the hierarchical chain of parent-child
relationship by an alternative path that skips over a specified level if it is null.
■ CREATE RESTORE POINT on page 15-60 is a new SQL statement that lets you
create a restore point, to which you can flash back a table or the database.
■ CREATE TABLE on page 16-6 documents the new limit on number of partitions
and subpartitions as 1024K - 1.
■ CREATE TABLE on page 16-6 and ALTER TABLE on page 12-2 contains new
syntax that lets you encrypt column data.
■ CREATE USER on page 17-26 and ALTER USER on page 13-18 contain new syntax
for determining how global and external users are identified.
■ DROP RESTORE POINT on page 17-79 is a new SQL statement that lets you drop
a restore point.
■ FLASHBACK DATABASE on page 18-23 has new syntax that lets you flash back
the database to a restore point.
■ FLASHBACK TABLE on page 18-26 has new syntax that lets you flash back a table

to a restore point.
The following clauses are modified in this release:
■ All of the DML statements (INSERT, UPDATE, DELETE, MERGE) now have an error
logging clause. See for example INSERT on page 18-51.
■ "Model Expressions" on page 6-11 have been enhanced to allow analytic functions
and FOR loops.
The following built-in data mining functions are new in this release:
■ CLUSTER_ID on page 5-29
■ CLUSTER_PROBABILITY on page 5-30
■ CLUSTER_SET on page 5-32
■ FEATURE_ID on page 5-63
■ FEATURE_SET on page 5-65
■ FEATURE_VALUE on page 5-67
■ PREDICTION on page 5-120
■ PREDICTION_COST on page 5-122
■ PREDICTION_DETAILS on page 5-123
■ PREDICTION_PROBABILITY on page 5-124
■ PREDICTION_SET on page 5-126
The following built-in XML functions are new in this release:
■ APPENDCHILDXML
■ DELETEXML
■ INSERTCHILDXML
■ INSERTXMLBEFORE
■ XMLCDATA
■ XMLCOMMENT
xxv
■ XMLPI
■ XMLROOT
■ XMLPARSE
■ XMLPI

■ XMLQUERY
■ XMLSERIALIZE
■ XMLTABLE
The following datatypes are new in this release:
■ "SDO_TOPO_GEOMETRY" on page 2-35
The following pseudocolumns are new in this release:
■ COLUMN_VALUE Pseudocolumn on page 3-6
The following miscellaneous changes have been made:
■ Appendix C, "Oracle Regular Expression Support" on page C-1 lists the
Perl-influenced operators that are now supported in Oracle regular expression
functions and conditions.
■ Two new hints are provided to handle parallel join bitmap filtering: "PX_JOIN_
FILTER Hint" on page 2-93 and "NO_PX_JOIN_FILTER Hint" on page 2-88.
■ The new CHANGE NOTIFICATION system privilege is documented in GRANT on
page 18-32.
Oracle Database 10g Release 1 New Features in the SQL Reference
The following datatypes are new in this release:
■ The binary floating-point datatypes BINARY_FLOAT on page 2-12 and BINARY_
DOUBLE on page 2-12
■ The spatial datatype SDO_GEORASTER on page 2-35
■ The interMedia datatype SI_StillImage on page 2-36 and six related Still Image
object types
The following top-level SQL statements are new or enhanced in this release:
■ A number of new top-level SQL statements have been added to support
Automatic Storage Management:
– CREATE DISKGROUP on page 14-44
– ALTER DISKGROUP on page 10-48
– DROP DISKGROUP on page 17-60
In addition, the following statements have added syntax in support of Automatic
Storage Management:

– file_specification subclauses, datafile_tempfile_spec and redo_log_
file_spec, let you specify Automatic Storage Management files in the form
of ASM_filename on page 8-30, as well as file system files
– CREATE CONTROLFILE on page 14-12 lets you specify Automatic Storage
Management files as well as file system files