A new section of each course starts monthly. If enrolling in a series of two or
more courses, please be sure to space the start date for each course at least two
months apart.
All courses run for six weeks, with a two-week grace period at the end. Two lessons
are released each week for the six-week duration of the course. You do not have
to be present when lessons are released. You will have access to all lessons until
the course ends. However, the interactive discussion area that accompanies each
lesson will automatically close two weeks after the lesson is released. As such,
we strongly recommend that you complete each lesson within two weeks of its release.
The final exam will be released on the same day as the last lesson. Once the final
exam has been released, you will have two weeks to complete all of your course work,
including the final exam.
Week One
Wednesday - Lesson 01
In our first lesson, you'll master the basics of PL/SQL and discover how you can best get started using this powerful language.You'll also learn the differences between SQL, SQL*Plus, and PL/SQL today.
Friday - Lesson 02
The block is the basic unit of PL/SQL programming. In this lesson, you'll learn and understand the various datatypes available to you when declaring variables. You'll also explore the PL/SQL's block structure, its use, and its impact on the scope of variable declarations.
Week Two
Wednesday - Lesson 03
Today, you're going to learn how to use operators to manipulate variables. You'll build simple expressions that compute two values, as well as complex expressions that consist of function calls, operations using variables, and relational comparisons. You'll also learn about datatype conversions for expressions that contain operands of multiple datatypes.
Friday - Lesson 04
In this lesson, you'll take a closer look at how to create your own functions. The two main reasons for writing functions are the reduction of code and their ease of use. You'll learn how to code PL/SQL functions, how to define parameters in the functions, and how to store them. I'll also show you how to control the execution of PL/SQL blocks using the IF and looping statements. Then, we'll explore the various IF statements and how they operate, and you'll gain experience working with a simple loop.
Week Three
Wednesday - Lesson 05
In today’s lesson, you'll begin to master more methods for changing the order of execution of PL/SQL blocks. We'll cover statement labels, the GOTO statement, and the different kinds of loops. You'll learn how to branch by using the GOTO statement followed by a statement label. Then, we'll discuss why the statement label must appear in the same block and within the same scope as the GOTO statement. Next, we'll look at control structures. You'll learn about the different kinds of loops and how they operate. Finally, you'll discover techniques for exiting loops and how to simulate a REPEAT...UNTIL loop.
Friday - Lesson 06
We'll look at a number of Oracle’s built-in functions in this lesson, including string functions, number functions, date functions, and conversion functions.
Week Four
Wednesday - Lesson 07
In this lesson, we'll focus on procedures and packages and how they allow you to organize your PL/SQL code into logical groups for uncomplicated maintenance and implementation.
Friday - Lesson 08
Errors that occur from hardware or network failures, application logic errors, data integrity errors, and other sources are called exceptions. In this lesson, I'll introduce you to the concepts behind PL/SQL exception handling. I'll explain the different types of exceptions and show you how to identify and handle errors in your code.
Week Five
Wednesday - Lesson 09
The Structured Query Language (SQL) is the industry standard for accessing data from relational databases. In this lesson, we'll address the connection to the underlying Oracle database through SQL (Structured Query Language). We'll cover the usage of SQL's Data Manipulation Language (DML) commands within a PL/SQL block. Then you'll learn how to define DML transactions that insert, update, delete, and query the information.
Friday - Lesson 10
PL/SQL cursors provide a method for selecting multiple rows of data from the database and processing each row individually. You can use cursors for simple procedures and complex processing. In this lesson, I'll introduce you to cursors and how they may be used.
Week Six
Wednesday - Lesson 11
In this lesson, you'll learn about triggers and experiment with implementing a few different types of functionality. We'll discuss advanced cursor concepts, which include the SELECT...FOR UPDATE statement, the WHERE CURRENT OF clause, and subqueries in cursors. Finally, you'll learn techniques to managing PL/SQL code.
Friday - Lesson 12
Although some may never admit to it, everyone makes mistakes, so you will inevitably make some coding errors. These errors are usually comprised of syntax and logic errors. In our final lesson, I'll demonstrate how to find these bugs and then how to reduce the number of coding mistakes you may encounter.