SQLcl the next generation of SQLPlus?

Oded Raz & Zohar Elkayam
Brillix
www.realdbamagic.com
Twitter: @realmgic
SQLcl:
The Next Generation of SQL*Plus?

About Oded Raz
http://brillix.co.il2
• Founder of Brillix and co-CEO
• Oracle ACE Director since 2010
• Over 20 years of experience as DBA
• Identity & Access solution specialist

About Zohar Elkayam
• CTO at Brillix
• Oracle ACE Associate since 2014
• DBA, team leader, Oracle University instructor and a senior
consultant for over 17 years
• Editor of ilDBA – Israel Database Community website
• Blogger – www.realdbamagic.com

Agenda
• SQL*Plus and what is it good for
• Introducing SQLcl
• How to install and how to use SQLcl
• SQLcl new features and demo
• Q&A

SQL*Plus
• Introduced in Oracle 5 (1985)
• Looks very simple but has tight integration with other Oracle
infrastructure and tools
• Very good for reporting, scripting, and automation
• Replaced old CLI tool called …
UFI (“User Friendly Interface”)

What’s Wrong With SQL*Plus?
• Nothing really wrong with SQL*Plus – it is being updated constantly
but it is missing a lot of functionality
• SQL*Plus forces us to use GUI tools to complete some basic tasks
• Easy to understand, a bit hard to use
• Not easy for new users or developers

Introducing SQLcl
• SQLcl is a new command line interface (CLI) for SQL users and
DBAs
• It is part of the SQL Developer suite – developed by the same
team: Oracle Database Development Tools Team
• Can do most of what SQL*Plus does and much more
• Minimal installation, minimal requirements

Introducing SQLcl (cont.)
• It’s still in the early adopter version (current version:
4.2.0.15.121.1046, May 4, 2015)
• Uses Java, one version for Windows, Linux and OS X
• Planned to be shipped out with Oracle Database 12cR2

Current Status
• Early Adopter version
• QA still logging bugs from SQL*Plus regression tests
• Adding support for existing SQL*Plus commands/syntax
• Adding new commands
• But can it do...?
• Yes
• Not yet
• No

Installing
• Download from: SQL Developer Download page
• Unzip the file
• Run it

Prerequisites
• Very small footprint: 11MB
• Needs Java 7/8 runtime environment (no need for JDK)
• No need for installer or setup
• No need for any other additional software or licence

Connecting to the Database
• No need for Oracle Client
• Thin connection: EZConnect connect style out of the box
connect host:port/service
• Support TNS, Thick and LDAP connection when Oracle home detected
• Auto-complete connection strings
• Can show JDBC for connection information

Object Completion and Easy Edit
• Use the tab key to complete commands
• Can be used to list tables, views or other queriable objects
• Can be used to replace the * with actual column names
• Use the arrow keys to move around the command
• Use CTRL+W and CTRL+S to jump to the beginning/end of
commands

Command History
• 100 command history buffer
• Commands are persistent between sessions (watch out for security!)
• Use UP and DOWN arrow keys to access old commands
• Usage:
history
history usage
History script
history full
History clear [session?]
• Load from history into command buffer:
history <number>

Describe, Information and info+
• Describe lists the column of the tables just like SQL*Plus
• Information shows column names, default values, indexes and constraints.
• In 12c database information shows table statistics and In memory status
• Works for table, views, sequences, and code objects
• Info+ shows additional information regarding column statistics and column
histograms

Repeat
• Repeats the current SQL or PL/SQL in the buffer the specified
number of times with specified sleep intervals
• Looks like the “watch” command in Linux
• Usage:
repeat <iterations> <sleep>

Repeat as “tail -f alert.log”
• Jeff Smith (@thatjeffsmith) had a cool implementation for the
repeat command on Oracle 12c:
• tail –f on the alert log
SELECT
To_Char(Originating_Timestamp, 'DD-MON-YYYY HH24:MI:SSxFF')
Time_Entry, substr(trim(message_text), 0, 75) || '...'
ABBR_MESSAGE_TEXT
FROM X$dbgalertext
ORDER BY Originating_Timestamp DESC, indx desc
fetch FIRST 15 ROWS ONLY;

DDL and DBMS_METADATA
• Extract DDL of objects using a single command
DDL <object name>
• Uses DBMS_METADATA.GET_DDL to extract the object
• We can modify the output using TRANSFORM_PARAM:
exec dbms_metadata.set_transform_param
(dbms_metadata.session_transform, 'SEGMENT_ATTRIBUTES',
false);

Alias
• Alias is a command which allows us to save a SQL, PL/SQL or
SQL*Plus scripts, and assign it a shortcut command.
• Command can receive parameters using bind variables
• Aliases are session persistent and being saved
• Usage:
• alias - for list of aliases
• alias list <aliasName> - for definition
• Setting an alias:
• alias my_command=sql; (terminate with ;)
• alias my_code=begin command; end; (terminate with /)

Alias Example
• We want to show the DDL command without the segment part but the
transformation is on the session level.
• We set this alias:
alias ddl_fix_output=begin
dbms_metadata.set_transform_param
(dbms_metadata.session_transform, 'SQLTERMINATOR', TRUE);
dbms_metadata.set_transform_param
(dbms_metadata.session_transform, 'SEGMENT_ATTRIBUTES', false);
end;
/

CTAS
• Extract DDL for a table and use it to recreate another table
using select * from
• Useful when we want to copy a table with partitions or a
primary key
• Might not stay in the final version – have a lot of small and
annoying issues
• Usage:
ctas table new_table

SQLPATH
• SQLPATH is the order in which the CLI is looking for sql scripts
(both in SQL*Plus and SQLcl)
• Running a script not from the path requires full path location
• Default search order is:
1. Current cd directory
2. Current running directory
3. The rest of the sqlpath
• Show SQLPATH will show that current search path

CD command
• When we want to change the path in SQL*Plus, we usually can’t.
• SQLcl comes with CD command to change that path and make it
easier to run scripts:
• Usage:
cd /u01/app/oracle/scripts
Show SQLPATH

Bridge
• Used mainly to script data move between two connections
from the client (no server direct server connections)
• The following functionality is available:
1. Query tables in other connections
2. Query tables in multiple connections in the same statement
3. Insert data from one connection into another
4. Create a table and insert data into it from another connection

Bridge (cont.)
• Uses JDBC connection string to connect our client to the remote
connection.
• Creates a table with the results in the database
• Usage:
BRIDGE <targetTableName> as "<jdbcURL>"(<sqlQuery>);
• Example:
BRIDGE dept_remote as
“jdbc:oracle:thin:scott/tiger@localhost:1521/orcl"(
select * from dept);

SQL*Plus Output
• SQL*Plus output is generated as text tables
• We can output the data as HTML but the will take over
everything we do in SQL*Plus (i.e. describe command)
• We can’t use colors in our output
• We can’t generate other types of useful outputs (CSV is really
hard for example)

Generating Pretty Output
• Outputting query results becomes easier with the “set
sqlformat” command (also available in SQL Developer)
• We can create a query in the “regular” way and then switch
between the different output styles:
• ANSIConsole
• Fixed column size output
• XML or JSON output
• HTML output generates a built in search field and a responsive
html output for the result only

Generating Other Useful Outputs
• We can generate loader ready output (with “|” as a delimiter)
• We can generate insert commands
• We can easily generate CSV output
• Usage:
set sqlformat { csv,html,xml,json,ansiconsole,insert,
loader,fixed,default}

Load Data From CSV File
• Loads a comma separated value (csv) file into a table
• The first row of the file must be a header row and the file must
be encoded UTF8
• The load is processed with 50 rows per batch
• Usage:
LOAD [schema.]table_name[@db_link] file_name

Conclusion
• We talked about SQL*Plus and SQLcl differences
• We saw how to start working with SQLcl
• We tried some of its new features
• There are more new features coming and since it's and EA
version, more bug fixes to come

Q&A

Useful Resources
• Kris Rice (@krisrice) manage Oracle SQL Developer
Blog: http://krisrice.blogspot.com/
• Jeff Smith (@thatjeffsmith) Oracle SQL Developer Product
Manager at Oracle
Blog: http://www.thatjeffsmith.com/
• Barry McGillin (@bamcgill) – Oracle
Blog: http://barrymcgillin.blogspot.com/

Thank You
Zohar Elkayam
twitter: @realmgic
Zohar@Brillix.co.il
www.realdbamagic.com

SQLcl the next generation of SQLPlus?

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