9i rel 2 sql ref

Oracle9
i
SQL Reference
Release 2 (9.2)
March 2002
Part No. A96540-01
Oracle9i SQL Reference, Release 2 (9.2)
Part No. A96540-01
Copyright © 1996, 2002, Oracle Corporation. All rights reserved.
Primary Author: Diana Lorentz
Contributing Author: Joan Gregoire
Contributors: Sundeep Abraham, Nipun Agarwal, Dave Alpern, Angela Amor, Patrick Amor, Rick
Anderson, Vikas Arora, Lance Ashdown, Hermann Baer, Subhransu Basu, Ruth Baylis, Paula Bingham,
Rae Burns, Yujie Cao, Larry Carpenter, Sivasankaran Chandrasekar, Thomas Chang, Tim Chorma, Lex de
Haan, Norbert Debes, George Eadon, Bill Gietz, Ray Guzman, John Haydu, Lilian Hobbs, Jiansheng
Huang, Ken Jacobs, Archna Johnson, Vishy Karra, Thomas Keefe, Susan Kotsovolos, Muralidhar
Krishnaprasad, Goutam Kulkarni, Paul Lane, Shilpa Lawande, Geoff Lee, Yunrui Li, Lenore Luscher,
Kevin MacDowell, Anand Manikutty, Vineet Marwah, Steve McGee, Bill McGuirk, Bill McKenna,
Meghna Mehta, Tony Morales, Sujatha Muthulingam, Michael Orlowski, Jennifer Polk, Dmitry Potapov,
Rebecca Reitmeyer, Kathy Rich, John Russell, Vivian Schupmann, Shrikanth Shankar, Vikram Shukla,
Mike Stewart, Sankar Subramanian, Seema Sundara, Hal Takahara, Ashish Thusoo, Anh-Tuan Tran,
Randy Urbano, Guhan Viswanathan, David Wang, Jim Warner, Andy Witkowski, Daniel Wong, Jianping
Yang, Adiel Yoaz, Qin Yu, Tim Yu, Mohamed Zait, Fred Zemke
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iii
Contents
Send Us Your Comments xvii
Preface xix
What’s New in SQL Reference? xxix
1 Introduction
2 Basic Elements of Oracle SQL
Datatypes 2-2
Literals 2-54
Format Models 2-62

Nulls 2-81
Pseudocolumns 2-83
Comments 2-90
Database Objects 2-107
Schema Object Names and Qualifiers 2-111
Syntax for Schema Objects and Parts in SQL Statements 2-116
3 Operators
About SQL Operators 3-2
Arithmetic Operators 3-3
Concatenation Operator 3-4
Set Operators 3-6
iv
User-Defined Operators 3-6
4 Expressions
About SQL Expressions 4-2
Simple Expressions 4-3
Compound Expressions 4-5
CASE Expressions 4-6
CURSOR Expressions 4-7
Datetime Expressions 4-9
Function Expressions 4-11
INTERVAL Expressions 4-11
Object Access Expressions 4-12
Scalar Subquery Expressions 4-13
Type Constructor Expressions 4-13
Variable Expressions 4-15
Expression Lists 4-15
5 Conditions
About SQL Conditions 5-2
Comparison Conditions 5-4

Logical Conditions 5-8
Membership Conditions 5-9
Range Conditions 5-12
Null Conditions 5-13
EQUALS_PATH 5-13
EXISTS Conditions 5-14
LIKE Conditions 5-15
IS OF type Conditions 5-19
UNDER_PATH 5-20
Compound Conditions 5-21
6 Functions
SQL Functions 6-2
ABS 6-16
v
ACOS 6-16
ADD_MONTHS 6-17
ASCII 6-17
ASCIISTR 6-18
ASIN 6-19
ATAN 6-20
ATAN2 6-20
AV G 6-21
BFILENAME 6-22
BIN_TO_NUM 6-23
BITAND 6-24
CAST 6-25
CEIL 6-28
CHARTOROWID 6-29
CHR 6-29
COALESCE 6-31

COMPOSE 6-32
CONCAT 6-33
CONVERT 6-34
CORR 6-35
COS 6-37
COSH 6-38
COUNT 6-38
COVAR_POP 6-40
COVAR_SAMP 6-42
CUME_DIST 6-45
CURRENT_DATE 6-47
CURRENT_TIMESTAMP 6-48
DBTIMEZONE 6-49
DECODE 6-50
DECOMPOSE 6-51
DENSE_RANK 6-53
DEPTH 6-55
DEREF 6-56
DUMP 6-57
vi
EMPTY_BLOB, EMPTY_CLOB 6-59
EXISTSNODE 6-59
EXP 6-60
EXTRACT (datetime) 6-61
EXTRACT (XML) 6-62
EXTRACTVALUE 6-63
FIRST 6-64
FIRST_VALUE 6-66
FLOOR 6-68
FROM_TZ 6-68

GREATEST 6-69
GROUP_ID 6-69
GROUPING 6-71
GROUPING_ID 6-72
HEXTORAW 6-74
INITCAP 6-74
INSTR 6-75
LAG 6-77
LAST 6-78
LAST_DAY 6-80
LAST_VALUE 6-81
LEAD 6-83
LEAST 6-84
LENGTH 6-85
LN 6-86
LOCALTIMESTAMP 6-87
LOG 6-88
LOWER 6-88
LPAD 6-89
LTRIM 6-90
MAKE_REF 6-91
MAX 6-92
MIN 6-94
MOD 6-95
MONTHS_BETWEEN 6-96
vii
NCHR 6-97
NEW_TIME 6-97
NEXT_DAY 6-99
NLS_CHARSET_DECL_LEN 6-99

NLS_CHARSET_ID 6-100
NLS_CHARSET_NAME 6-101
NLS_INITCAP 6-101
NLS_LOWER 6-103
NLSSORT 6-104
NLS_UPPER 6-105
NTILE 6-106
NULLIF 6-107
NUMTODSINTERVAL 6-108
NUMTOYMINTERVAL 6-109
NVL 6-110
NVL2 6-111
PATH 6-112
PERCENT_RANK 6-113
PERCENTILE_CONT 6-115
PERCENTILE_DISC 6-118
POWER 6-119
RANK 6-120
RATIO_TO_REPORT 6-122
RAWTOHEX 6-123
RAWTONHEX 6-123
REF 6-124
REFTOHEX 6-125
REGR_ (Linear Regression) Functions 6-126
REPLACE 6-134
ROUND (number) 6-135
ROUND (date) 6-136
ROW_NUMBER 6-136
ROWIDTOCHAR 6-138
ROWIDTONCHAR 6-138

RPAD 6-139
viii
RTRIM 6-140
SESSIONTIMEZONE 6-140
SIGN 6-141
SIN 6-142
SINH 6-142
SOUNDEX 6-143
SQRT 6-144
STDDEV 6-145
STDDEV_POP 6-146
STDDEV_SAMP 6-148
SUBSTR 6-149
SUM 6-151
SYS_CONNECT_BY_PATH 6-152
SYS_CONTEXT 6-153
SYS_DBURIGEN 6-158
SYS_EXTRACT_UTC 6-159
SYS_GUID 6-160
SYS_TYPEID 6-161
SYS_XMLAGG 6-162
SYS_XMLGEN 6-163
SYSDATE 6-164
SYSTIMESTAMP 6-165
TAN 6-166
TANH 6-166
TO_CHAR (character) 6-167
TO_CHAR (datetime) 6-168
TO_CHAR (number) 6-170
TO_CLOB 6-172

TO_DATE 6-172
TO_DSINTERVAL 6-174
TO_LOB 6-175
TO_MULTI_BYTE 6-176
TO_NCHAR (character) 6-177
TO_NCHAR (datetime) 6-178
TO_NCHAR (number) 6-179
ix
TO_NCLOB 6-180
TO_NUMBER 6-180
TO_SINGLE_BYTE 6-181
TO_TIMESTAMP 6-182
TO_TIMESTAMP_TZ 6-183
TO_YMINTERVAL 6-185
TRANSLATE 6-185
TRANSLATE USING 6-187
TREAT 6-188
TRIM 6-190
TRUNC (number) 6-191
TRUNC (date) 6-192
TZ_OFFSET 6-192
UID 6-193
UNISTR 6-194
UPDATEXML 6-194
UPPER 6-196
USER 6-196
USERENV 6-197
VALUE 6-199
VAR_POP 6-199
VAR_SAMP 6-201

VARIANCE 6-203
VSIZE 6-204
WIDTH_BUCKET 6-205
XMLAGG 6-207
XMLCOLATTVAL 6-208
XMLCONCAT 6-209
XMLELEMENT 6-211
XMLFOREST 6-214
XMLSEQUENCE 6-215
XMLTRANSFORM 6-216
ROUND and TRUNC Date Functions 6-218
User-Defined Functions 6-219
x
7 Common SQL DDL Clauses
allocate_extent_clause 7-2
constraints 7-5
deallocate_unused_clause 7-37
file_specification 7-39
logging_clause 7-45
parallel_clause 7-49
physical_attributes_clause 7-52
storage_clause 7-56
8 SQL Queries and Subqueries
About Queries and Subqueries 8-2
Creating Simple Queries 8-2
Hierarchical Queries 8-3
The UNION [ALL], INTERSECT, MINUS Operators 8-6
Sorting Query Results 8-9
Joins 8-9
Using Subqueries 8-13

Unnesting of Nested Subqueries 8-14
Selecting from the DUAL Table 8-15
Distributed Queries 8-15
9 SQL Statements: ALTER CLUSTER to ALTER SEQUENCE
Types of SQL Statements 9-2
Organization of SQL Statements 9-5
ALTER CLUSTER 9-7
ALTER DATABASE 9-13
ALTER DIMENSION 9-58
ALTER FUNCTION 9-61
ALTER INDEX 9-64
ALTER INDEXTYPE 9-87
ALTER JAVA 9-89
ALTER MATERIALIZED VIEW 9-92
ALTER MATERIALIZED VIEW LOG 9-112
xi
ALTER OPERATOR 9-119
ALTER OUTLINE 9-120
ALTER PACKAGE 9-122
ALTER PROCEDURE 9-126
ALTER PROFILE 9-129
ALTER RESOURCE COST 9-133
ALTER ROLE 9-136
ALTER ROLLBACK SEGMENT 9-138
ALTER SEQUENCE 9-142
10 SQL Statements: ALTER SESSION to ALTER SYSTEM
ALTER SESSION 10-2
Initialization Parameters and ALTER SESSION 10-8
Session Parameters and ALTER SESSION 10-12
ALTER SYSTEM 10-22

Initialization Parameters and ALTER SYSTEM 10-36
11 SQL Statements: ALTER TABLE to ALTER TABLESPACE
ALTER TABLE 11-2
ALTER TABLESPACE 11-101
12 SQL Statements: ALTER TRIGGER to COMMIT
ALTER TRIGGER 12-2
ALTER TYPE 12-6
ALTER USER 12-21
ALTER VIEW 12-30
ANALYZE 12-33
ASSOCIATE STATISTICS 12-48
AUDIT 12-52
CALL 12-66
COMMENT 12-69
COMMIT 12-72
xii
13 SQL Statements: CREATE CLUSTER to CREATE JAVA
CREATE CLUSTER 13-2
CREATE CONTEXT 13-12
CREATE CONTROLFILE 13-15
CREATE DATABASE 13-22
CREATE DATABASE LINK 13-35
CREATE DIMENSION 13-41
CREATE DIRECTORY 13-46
CREATE FUNCTION 13-49
CREATE INDEX 13-62
CREATE INDEXTYPE 13-91
CREATE JAVA 13-94
14 SQL Statements: CREATE LIBRARY to CREATE SPFILE
CREATE LIBRARY 14-2

CREATE MATERIALIZED VIEW 14-5
CREATE MATERIALIZED VIEW LOG 14-32
CREATE OPERATOR 14-42
CREATE OUTLINE 14-46
CREATE PACKAGE 14-50
CREATE PACKAGE BODY 14-55
CREATE PFILE 14-60
CREATE PROCEDURE 14-62
CREATE PROFILE 14-69
CREATE ROLE 14-77
CREATE ROLLBACK SEGMENT 14-80
CREATE SCHEMA 14-84
CREATE SEQUENCE 14-87
CREATE SPFILE 14-92
15 SQL Statements: CREATE SYNONYM to CREATE TRIGGER
CREATE SYNONYM 15-2
CREATE TABLE 15-7
CREATE TABLESPACE 15-80
xiii
CREATE TEMPORARY TABLESPACE 15-92
CREATE TRIGGER 15-95
16 SQL Statements: CREATE TYPE to DROP ROLLBACK SEGMENT
CREATE TYPE 16-3
CREATE TYPE BODY 16-25
CREATE USER 16-32
CREATE VIEW 16-39
DELETE 16-55
DISASSOCIATE STATISTICS 16-64
DROP CLUSTER 16-67
DROP CONTEXT 16-69

DROP DATABASE LINK 16-70
DROP DIMENSION 16-71
DROP DIRECTORY 16-73
DROP FUNCTION 16-74
DROP INDEX 16-76
DROP INDEXTYPE 16-78
DROP JAVA 16-80
DROP LIBRARY 16-82
DROP MATERIALIZED VIEW 16-83
DROP MATERIALIZED VIEW LOG 16-85
DROP OPERATOR 16-87
DROP OUTLINE 16-89
DROP PACKAGE 16-90
DROP PROCEDURE 16-92
DROP PROFILE 16-94
DROP ROLE 16-96
DROP ROLLBACK SEGMENT 16-97
17 SQL Statements: DROP SEQUENCE to ROLLBACK
DROP SEQUENCE 17-2
DROP SYNONYM 17-4
DROP TABLE 17-6
DROP TABLESPACE 17-10
xiv
DROP TRIGGER 17-13
DROP TYPE 17-15
DROP TYPE BODY 17-18
DROP USER 17-20
DROP VIEW 17-22
EXPLAIN PLAN 17-24
GRANT 17-29

INSERT 17-54
LOCK TABLE 17-74
MERGE 17-78
NOAUDIT 17-82
RENAME 17-87
REVOKE 17-89
ROLLBACK 17-100
18 SQL Statements: SAVEPOINT to UPDATE
SAVEPOINT 18-2
SELECT 18-4
SET CONSTRAINT[S] 18-45
SET ROLE 18-47
SET TRANSACTION 18-50
TRUNCATE 18-54
UPDATE 18-59
A How to Read Syntax Diagrams
B Oracle and Standard SQL
C Oracle Reserved Words
D Examples
Using Extensible Indexing D-2
xv
Using XML in SQL Statements D-11
Index
xvi
xvii
Send Us Your Comments
Oracle9
i
SQL Reference, Release 2 (9.2)
Part No. A96540-01

Oracle Corporation welcomes your comments and suggestions on the quality and usefulness of this
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xix
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) SQL99 standard.
This preface contains these topics:
■ Audience

■ Organization
■ Related Documentation
■ Conventions
■ Documentation Accessibility
xx
Audience
The Oracle9i SQL Reference is intended for all users of Oracle SQL.
Organization
This reference is divided into the following parts:
Volume 1
Chapter 1, "Introduction"
This chapter discusses the history of SQL and describes the advantages of using it
to access relational databases.
Chapter 2, "Basic Elements of Oracle SQL"
This chapter describes the basic building blocks of an Oracle database and of
Oracle SQL.
Chapter 3, "Operators"
This chapter describes SQL operators.
Chapter 4, "Expressions"
This chapter describes SQL expressions.
Chapter 5, "Conditions"
This chapter describes SQL conditions.
Chapter 6, "Functions"
This chapter describes how to use SQL functions.
Chapter 7, "Common SQL DDL Clauses"
This chapter describes a number of DDL clauses that are frequently used in
multiple top-level SQL statements.
Chapter 8, "SQL Queries and Subqueries"
This chapter describes the different types of SQL queries and lists the various types
of SQL statements.

xxi
Volume 2
Chapter 9, "SQL Statements: ALTER CLUSTER to ALTER SEQUENCE"
Chapter 10, "SQL Statements: ALTER SESSION to ALTER SYSTEM"
Chapter 11, "SQL Statements: ALTER TABLE to ALTER TABLESPACE"
Chapter 12, "SQL Statements: ALTER TRIGGER to COMMIT"
Chapter 13, "SQL Statements: CREATE CLUSTER to CREATE JAVA"
Chapter 14, "SQL Statements: CREATE LIBRARY to CREATE SPFILE"
Chapter 15, "SQL Statements: CREATE SYNONYM to CREATE TRIGGER"
Chapter 16, "SQL Statements: CREATE TYPE to DROP ROLLBACK
SEGMENT"
Chapter 17, "SQL Statements: DROP SEQUENCE to ROLLBACK"
Chapter 18, "SQL Statements: SAVEPOINT to UPDATE"
These chapters list and describe all Oracle SQL statements in alphabetical order.
Appendix A, "How to Read Syntax Diagrams"
This appendix describes how to read the syntax diagrams in this reference.
Appendix B, "Oracle and Standard SQL"
This appendix describes Oracle compliance with ANSI and ISO standards.
Appendix C, "Oracle Reserved Words"
This appendix lists words that are reserved for internal use by Oracle.
Appendix D, "Examples"
This appendix provides extended examples that use multiple SQL statements and
are therefore not appropriate for any single section of the reference.
Structural Changes in the SQL Reference in Oracle9
i
Release 2 (9.2)
The following frequently used DDL clauses have been separated into their own
chapter, Chapter 7, "Common SQL DDL Clauses":
allocate_extent_clause
on

page 7-2,
constraints
on page 7-5,
deallocate_unused_clause
on page 7-37,
file_specification
on page 7-39,
logging_clause
on page 7-45,
parallel_clause
on page 7-49,
physical_attributes_clause
on page 7-52,
storage_clause
on page 7-56.
In earlier releases, the
autoextend_clause
appeared in a number of SQL
statements. It now is documented as part of the
datafile_tempfile_spec
form
xxii
of
file_specification
, to clarify that this attribute relates to datafiles and
tempfiles.
Structural Changes in the SQL Reference in Oracle9
i
Release 1 (9.0.1)
The chapter that formerly described expressions, conditions, and queries has been

divided. Conditions and expressions are now two separate chapters, and queries
are described in Chapter 8, "SQL Queries and Subqueries".
CAST, DECODE, and EXTRACT (datetime), which were formerly documented as
forms of expression, are now documented as SQL built-in functions.
LIKE and the elements formerly called "comparison operators" and "logical
operators" are now documented as SQL conditions.
The chapters containing all SQL statements (formerly Chapters 7 through 10) have
been divided into ten chapters for printing purposes.
Structural Changes in the SQL Reference in Oracle8
i
The chapter containing all SQL statements (formerly Chapter 7) has been divided
into four chapters for printing purposes.
Users familiar with the Release 8.0 documentation will find that the following
sections have been moved or renamed:
■ The section "Format Models" now appears in Chapter 2 on page 2-62.
■ Chapter 3 has been divided into several smaller chapters:
■ Chapter 3, "Operators"
■ Chapter 6, "Functions"
■ Chapter 4, "Expressions". The last section, "Queries and Subqueries" on
page 5-26, provides background for the syntactic and semantic information
in SELECT on page 18-4.
■ A new chapter, Chapter 8, "About SQL Statements", has been added to help you
find the correct SQL statement for a particular task.
■ The
archive_log_clause
is no longer a separate section, but has been
incorporated into ALTER SYSTEM on page 10-22.
■ The
deallocate_unused_clause
is no longer a separate section, but has

been incorporated into ALTER TABLE on page 11-2, ALTER CLUSTER on
page 9-7, and ALTER INDEX on page 9-64.
xxiii
■ The
disable_clause
is no longer a separate section, but has been
incorporated into CREATE TABLE on page 15-7 and ALTER TABLE on
page 11-2.
■ The
drop_clause
is no longer a separate section. It has become the
drop_
constraint_clause
of the ALTER TABLE statement (to distinguish it from
the new
drop_column_clause
of that statement). See ALTER TABLE on
page 11-2.
■ The
enable_clause
is no longer a separate section, but has been incorporated
into CREATE TABLE on page 15-7 and ALTER TABLE on page 11-2.
■ The
parallel_clause
is no longer a separate section. The clause has been
simplified, and has been incorporated into the various statements where it is
relevant.
■ The
recover_clause
is no longer a separate section. Recovery functionality

has been enhanced, and because it is always implemented through the ALTER
DATABASE statement, it has been incorporated into that section. See ALTER
DATABASE on page 9-13.
■ The sections on snapshots and snapshot logs have been moved and renamed.
Snapshot functionality has been greatly enhanced, and these objects are now
called materialized views. See CREATE MATERIALIZED VIEW on page 14-5,
ALTER MATERIALIZED VIEW on page 9-92, DROP MATERIALIZED VIEW
on page 16-83, CREATE MATERIALIZED VIEW LOG on page 14-32, ALTER
MATERIALIZED VIEW LOG on page 9-112, and DROP MATERIALIZED VIEW
LOG on page 16-85.
■ The section on subqueries has now been combined with the SELECT statement.
See SELECT on page 18-4.
■ The two SQL statements GRANT
object_privileges
and GRANT
system_
privileges_and_roles
have been combined into one GRANT statement. See
GRANT on page 17-29.
■ The two SQL statements REVOKE
schema_object_privileges
and REVOKE
system_privileges_and_roles
have been combined into one REVOKE
statement. See REVOKE on page 17-89.
■ The two SQL statements AUDIT
sql_statements
and AUDIT
schema_
objects

have been combined into one AUDIT statement. See AUDIT on
page 12-52.
xxiv
■ The two SQL statements NOAUDIT
sql_statements
and NOAUDIT
schema_
objects
have been combined into one NOAUDIT statement. See NOAUDIT on
page 17-82.
Related Documentation
For more information, see these Oracle resources:
■ PL/SQL User’s Guide and Reference for information on PL/SQL, Oracle’s
procedural language extension to SQL
■ Pro*C/C++ Precompiler Programmer’s Guide, SQL*Module for Ada Programmer’s
Guide, and the Pro*COBOL Precompiler Programmer’s Guide for detailed
descriptions of Oracle embedded SQL
Many of the examples in this book use the sample schemas of the seed database,
which is installed by default when you install Oracle. Refer to Oracle9i Sample
Schemas for information on how these schemas were created and how you can use
them yourself.
In North America, printed documentation is available for sale in the Oracle Store at
/>Customers in Europe, the Middle East, and Africa (EMEA) can purchase
documentation from
/>Other customers can contact their Oracle representative to purchase printed
documentation.
To download free release notes, installation documentation, white papers, or other
collateral, please visit the Oracle Technology Network (OTN). You must register
online before using OTN; registration is free and can be done at
/>If you already have a username and password for OTN, then you can go directly to

the documentation section of the OTN Web site at
/>To access the database documentation search engine directly, please visit

xxv
Conventions
This section describes the conventions used in the text and code examples of this
documentation set. It describes:
■ Conventions in Text
■ Conventions in Code Examples
Conventions in Text
We use various conventions in text to help you more quickly identify special terms.
The following table describes those conventions and provides examples of their use.
Convention Meaning Example
Bold Bold typeface indicates terms that are
defined in the text or terms that appear in
a glossary, or both.
When you specify this clause, you create an
index-organized table.
Italics Italic typeface indicates book titles or
emphasis.
Oracle9i Database Concepts
Ensure that the recovery catalog and target
database do not reside on the same disk.
UPPERCASE
monospace
(fixed-width)
font
Uppercase monospace typeface indicates
elements supplied by the system. Such
elements include parameters, privileges,

datatypes, RMAN keywords, SQL
keywords, SQL*Plus or utility commands,
packages and methods, as well as
system-supplied column names, database
objects and structures, usernames, and
roles.
You can specify this clause only for a NUMBER
column.
You can back up the database by using the
BACKUP command.
Query the TABLE_NAME column in the USER_
TABLES data dictionary view.
Use the DBMS_STATS.GENERATE_STATS
procedure.