Chapter 5. Finalizing the Tables for the Waiver Exam

So far we've had a look at some of the basic SQL, SQL*Plus, and PL/SQL commands, and we've walked through some programming examples. And we've done all this using some basic business specs for a hypothetical waiver exam. Now it's time to start using the conceptual framework I've given you and come up with the actual table design, table relationships, and rules for our real objective, which is a useful, viable , and hopefully marketable waiver exam. From what you've been shown so far, you should be able to follow the steps as we get down to the nuts and bolts of these tasks .

We will be filling in the details of the tables we developed in Chapter 4, using the concepts of keys and relationships discussed in Chapter 3. We're also going to use several other Oracle constructs to build in data integrity that will help protect your database, so get ready to move into the world of constraints, foreign keys, and other such constructs that will ultimately make your life as an Oracle expert a little easier.

Once the tables are complete, we'll move away from them for a bit in the following three chapters while we build the server and establish our security schema. Then in Chapter 9 we'll be ready to take what we've done here and actually create the database tables. What we do here in Chapter 5 is the foundation for everything that follows . We must give a lot of care to our tables because they determine the success or failure of every other activity we do from this point forward.