FAQ

• Can I use ORACLE from my home machine? Can I install it locally?
  We are sorry, the only license we have is for the lab machines and there is no way to access it remotely.
  
  
• How do I see the list of tables I just created in my database?
  Type "SELECT * FROM USER_TABLES;" from the SQL Plus prompt.
  
  
• How do I verify the definition of a table I just created?
  Type "DESC tablename;" to get this. Note that this lists most of the constraints but not all.
  
  
• There is no item for "MS-DOS Prompt" in the Start list on Windows. How do I get the dos prompt?
  [Sigh...] Choose "Start" -> "Run" and type "command".
  
  
• My control file looks fine, but the loader does not load all the records into the table!
  Look at the .log file that gets created in the same directory. It will give a description of where the error occured in the .ctl file. If you discover the record number that was in error, ensure that the data adheres to the data types of the attributes in the table. A common mistake is when you create an attribute NAME as CHAR[20] and your data file has a name which is 25 characters long.
  
  
• What are the possible data types Oracle SQL allows?
  You can find them in the documentation here (Click "Oracle 8i SQL Reference" and then look under "Data Types").
  
  
• Can I store images in my tables?
  Yes, you can! :) Refer the documentation for more details about Large Object (LOB) Datatypes.
  
  
• Where do I find more details about using Bulk Loader?
  This link has all that you ever want to know about SQL*Loader. Click it and scroll down to the part that talks about the "SQL *Loader".
  
  

• How do I create a table which has multiple attributes as a primary key?
  The table definition looks something like this.
  create table TableName(
  attribute1 TYPE,
  attribute2 TYPE,
  ... 
  PRIMARY KEY(attribute1, attribute2)
   );
  
  

• How to execute multiple SQL statement as a batch?
  First, you need to prepare a .txt file (we suppose it's named as C:/sql.txt) which contains all of the SQL statement you want to execute.
  The file looks like:
  create table test(a varchar(10), b char(2));
  insert into test(a,b) values('hello','01');
  insert into test(a,b) values('world','02');
  commit;
  
  Then, at the SqlPlus prompt, just type:
  SQL>@c:/sql.txt;