Oracle development tools come and go, but one of the few constants in the Oracle database environment is the PL/SQL programming language, which has been around for more than a decade. As Oracle's premier tool for building store procedures, PL/SQL supplements the standard database language, SQL, with the features needed to build real-world applications. This volume is suitable for newcomers to the language. It begins with a discussion of what PL/SQL is and what it's good for, and then presents language features, one at a time. A consistent and understandable example - the development of a library's electronic catalogue system - runs through the chapters.