Introduced a quarter-century ago, the Oracle database remains the leading enterprise relational database management system (RDBMS) in the world. Oracle is a complex system, offering a myriad of products, languages, and tools. Frequent updates, releases, and editions complicate the ability of Oracle users to keep up with the huge amounts of frequently changing information about the database and its capabilities.
The goal of Oracle in a Nutshell is to bring order to the chaos of Oracle information -- to pull together the most essential information on Oracle architecture, syntax, and user interfaces. The content and format of this book, an admirable addition to O'Reilly's respected In-a-Nutshell line, combine to boil down vital Oracle commands, language constructs, parameters, and file formats in a succinct and highly accessible desktop reference.
Oracle in a Nutshell covers the information that database administrators PL/SQL and Java developers, and system, network, and security administrators need as they manage Oracle databases and write code for these databases. It includes:

• Oracle Foundations--Overview of the Oracle architecture (memory structures and fundamental concepts), Oracle's various editions and packaging options, summary of the initialization file parameters and data dictionary views, and fundamentals of Oracle's concurrency scheme, security mechanisms (privileges, profiles, roles), and networking files (TNSNAMES.ORA, SQLNET.ORA, LISTENER.ORA, DAP.ORA, NAMES.ORA, CMAN.ORA) and options.
• Oracle Languages--Syntax summary for SQL language statements, SQL function calls PL/SQL language statements and characteristics, PL/SQL built-in package headers, and Java (JDBC and SQLJ) interfaces to the Oracle database.
• Oracle Tools--Commands provided with SQL*Plus, SQL*Loader, Import and Export, Oracle Recovery Manager (RMAN) and other backup/recovery methods, Oracle Enterprise Manager, and various performance tuning tools (Explain Plan, TKPROF, AUTOTRACE, UTLBSTAT, UTLESTAT, Statspack).
• Appendixes--Summary of Oracle datatypes, operators, expressions, conditions, numeric and date formats, and resources for additional reading.

• I. Foundations

• 1. Architecture and Packaging
• 2. Configuration
• 3. Concurrency
• 4. Security
• 5. Networking
• 6. Data Dictionary

• II. Languages

• 7. SQL
• 8. Functions
• 9. PL/SQL
• 10. PL/SQL Packages
• 11. Java and Oracle

• III. Tools and Utilities

• 12. SQL*Plus
• 13. Export and Import
• 14. SQL*Loader
• 15. Backup and Recovery
• 16. Enterprise Manager
• 17. Performance

• IV. Appendixes

• A. Datatypes
• B. Expressions, Operators, and Conditions
• C. Numeric Formats
• D. Date Formats
• E. Additional Resources