Accessing Sample Tables

where topic is a SQL*Plus help topic.

To display a list of available help topics, enter one of the following commands:

SQL> HELP INDEX

or

SQL> HELP TOPICS

Example

To get help for the COLUMN command, enter

SQL> HELP COLUMN

If you get a response that help is unavailable, check that you have correctly installed SQL*Plus help in the SYSTEM schema.

For more information about the HELP command, see Chapter 8, “Command Reference” in the SQL*Plus User’s Guide and Reference.

Accessing Sample Tables

Included with Oracle9i, are a number of sample schemas. The SQL*Plus tutorial and examples use the EMP_DETAILS_VIEW view of the Human Resources (HR) sample schema. This schema contains personnel records for a fictitious company. For information about unlocking and accessing the HR sample schema, see Chapter 1 of the SQL*Plus User’s Guide and Reference. For further information about the sample schemas included with Oracle9i, see the Oracle9i Sample Schemas guide.

Note: Dates in the sample schemas use four digit years. As the default date format in SQL*Plus is DD-MM-YY, dates displayed show only a two digit year. To control the way dates are displayed, either use ALTER SESSION SET NLS_DATE_FORMAT =’DD-MM-YYYY’, or use the SQL TO_CHAR function in your SELECT statements .

2-4 SQL*Plus Getting Started