What You Need to Use This Book

This book covers Oracle Database 10g Release 1 as well as Release 2 of the product, making specific reference to the latter where necessary. Hence, you need to use a supported version of Oracle Database 10g Release 1 at the least. By default, the features and code listed would work for installations that use Oracle Database Release 1 on any operating-system platform unless specifically mentioned otherwise. All SQL code listed is operating-system neutral unless UNIX-style directories are referred to within the code. In certain cases, UNIX-based shell scripts have been used as wrappers around SQL code to demonstrate a few features in principle. These scripts can easily be adapted to Windows and should work without change if they are executed under an emulator such as CygWin or MKS Toolkit. Please note that some of the database features are available only when licensed separately. These are specifically indicated.

Throughout the text, we refer to a number of manuals and MetaLink notes. Although the manuals are available both online at http://tahiti.oracle.com and with the software distribution, all readers may not have access to MetaLink. If you do not have a MetaLink account that can be used to access these notes, you can easily create one at http://metalink.oracle.com using your Customer Support Identifier (CSI). This should be available from whomever administers your Oracle Support Contract.