All language subtitles for [SubtitleTools.com] SQL Developer - Learning Oracle 12c [Video]

In this lesson, we want to
look at SQL Developer, which

is Oracle's newer, de facto
standard tool for addressing

a database.

So as a database administrator,
as a developer, even as a user,

we need to have
some kind of tool

that allows us to
connect to a database

and work with the data.

And today, that de facto
standard is SQL Developer.

However, up until very recently,
Oracle used another standard

tool called SQL*Plus.

SQL*Plus goes back a long
way, has a venerable history.

However, we'll see
some reasons, I

think, here, when we take a look
at it that SQL Developer can

be preferable in many ways.

Open a terminal window.

Now, SQL*Plus-- even though it
is a command line-based tool,

it has not gone
completely out of style,

and I do want to emphasize that
database administrators will

definitely still use SQL*Plus
for a lot of different

reasons--

mostly, the ability to be
on a server with something

like Secure Shell and to connect
to the database internally

rather than through a network.

However, there's a lot of things
that SQL Developer will do

better than SQL*Plus.

So let's look at it here.

It's just a Command Line tool--

SQL*Plus and the user
name and the password.

So SQL*Plus is a command
line line-based tool.

So whenever we type
statements, we get line numbers

that we can reference.

So an l will list those out.

l2 will list the second line.

So it can have a learning
curve when it comes

to learning to deal with that.

And even when you don't do it
that way, the results you get

can be difficult to understand--

or at least get a handle
on with the wrapping

that's involved in
the terminal screen.

So we're selecting all the
columns from the Employees

table, and yet
it's very difficult

to find what we're
looking for when we're

looking for a particular row.

So that's just an
example of SQL*Plus.

What we want to do now
is look at SQL Developer

and why we might like
it a little more.

First and foremost,
SQL Developer

is completely free and
downloadable from Oracle.

So anytime you want to
use it, there's no charge.

You download it from the
Oracle Technology Network.

It's very simple in that it
doesn't even have an installer.

You just unzip it
and run it, and it

has a self-contained
Java virtual machine Java

environment that it runs from.

So it's a fully Java-based tool.

It's also included in the Oracle
Server installation package.

So when you install a
database on an Oracle server,

you will get the SQL
Developer tool with it

to run either on the
server if you install it

as a client package on
your workstation machine.

Any of those will include
SQL Developer, because it

is the new default standard.

SQL*Plus will not be included
on any client-side type

of installation
that you would do.

SQL*Plus is still available from
the Command Line on a server

installation, but not a
workstation installation.

Another benefit of SQL
Developer is that it

is completely cross-platform.

It's written in Java.

It's available on Unix,
Windows, Linux, Mac--

any platform on which
we can run Oracle

will include SQL Developer.

And even better, the SQL
Developer application

that we run will look the same.

It will look the
same on Windows.

It will look the
same on Linux, Unix--

whatever.

So it has a true
cross-platform benefit to it.

A lot of the other database
administration tools for Oracle

are only available on Windows.

SQL Developer has
this commitment

to cross-platform
nature, Java, and so it's

available on the other
platforms as well.

Another benefit of
SQL Developer is

that it's kind of the right
tool for the right job.

A number of the other
Oracle-based tools--

administration tools,
developer tools--

they tend to be
everything in one basket.

So because they charge
for these products,

they tend to have tremendous
amounts of features.

And so if you're a
database administrator

and your organization
is trying to standardize

on what tool that
developers should use

and you pick one that
has more capabilities

than the developers really
need, such as the ability

to accidentally drop tables
with a click of a button,

that can be really problematic.

And I've had that
experience as a DBA as well.

Tables began disappearing,
and eventually you

find out it was mistakes
made with the tool.

So SQL Developer-- it
still has the ability

to do damage, if you will,
but not the kind of damage

that other administration
tools might have on the market.

So it's sort of the right
tool for the right job.

It's very good at
doing development--

so writing PL/SQL
code, writing SQL code,

those types of things--

doing very, very basic
administration types of things.

So that's another benefit of it.

It also supports
read-only connections

to a lot of other RDBMS systems.

So you can use SQL Developer
with the right plug-in

to connect to SQL
Server, Sybase, MySQL,

Microsoft Access, or IBM's Db2.

SQL Developer, because
of its open nature,

being written in Java,
also has the benefit

of third-party extensions.

So it's very open in its
architecture, and so it is--

if you have the skills--

very easy to write extensions
to the software itself.

So if SQL Developer
doesn't do something

that you want it to
do, you can either

search out on the
web to see if someone

has written an extension
that does that,

or you can write it yourself.

So let's take a
little bit of a tour,

here, through SQL Developer.

Over here on the left side,
we see our connection frames.

We're going to refer to
frames here on the screen.

And that's going to
list all the connections

we have to a database.

We don't have any connections,
so we click New Connection.

I'm going to call this hr@orcl
is the connection name.

User name HR.

Password-- save the password.

Change the SID to
orcl, and test.

We see a status of Success,
so we save, and connect.

So now we have our
connection saved over here.

We also have our environment
over here to do coding,

and we'll look at
that in just a second.

Before we do, let's click
this little plus besides HR.

And so it's going to give us a
nice GUI breakdown of tables,

views, packages, PL/SQL--

all of these things
that we definitely need.

So if we click a plus
next to the tables,

here's the tables that
are available to us

when we log in as the HR user.

Over on the right side is what
we call the SQL worksheet,

and it has two areas.

We only see one of
these right now.

But the area that we're looking
at here is the working area.

So this is the area where
we'd actually type in code.

We might say select * from--

and as we type, it
gives us the ability

to choose different
objects, views.

And we'll go ahead
and continue to type.

When we're ready to execute,
we just click this button here,

which is Run Statement.

And then we get the next frame,
which is the Results frame.

So this takes the
results from our query--

which we just want to see
all the rows in the Employees

table--

and it puts them
out nicely onscreen.

When it's too many columns
to show on a single screen,

we just have the ability
to scroll over to see it.

If there are a lot of
records, we just scroll down.

And that, in a nutshell,
is why it's better

to use SQL Developer-- because
the ability to see the data,

to easily edit the
data or the queries,

and just be more
productive in general.