------------------------------------------------------------------------------README.doc README.doc README.doc README.doc README.doc README.doc ------------------------------------------------------------------------------Release Bulletin SQL*Plus Release 9.0.

1 Production June 2001 Copyright (c) Oracle Corporation 2001. All Rights Reserved. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------README.doc README.doc README.doc README.doc README.doc README.doc -------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Contents -------1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. Restricted Rights Legend Documentation New Features in SQL*Plus Bugs Fixed Known Restrictions Desupport Notices

1. Restricted Rights Legend --------------------------This software contains proprietary information of Oracle Corporation; it is provided under a license agreement containing restrictions on use and disclosure and is also protected by copyright law. Reverse engineering of software is prohibited. If this software/documentation is delivered to a U.S. Government Agency of the Department of Defense, then it is delivered with Restricted Rights and the following legend is applicable: RESTRICTED RIGHTS LEGEND: Use, duplication, or disclosure of the Programs by the Government is subject to restrictions as set forth in subparagraph (c)(1)(ii) of DFARS 252.227-7013, Rights in Technical Data and Computer Software (October 1988). Oracle Corporation, 500 Oracle Parkway, Redwood City, CA 94065. If this software/documentation is delivered to a U.S. Government Agency not within the Department of Defense, then it is delivered with "Restricted Rights", as defined in FAR 52.227-14, Rights in Data - General, including Alternate III (June 1987). The information in this document is subject to change without notice. If you find any problems in the documentation, please report them to us in writing. Oracle Corporation does not warrant that this document is error free.

Oracle and SQL*Plus are registered trademarks, and Oracle7 and Oracle8 are trademarks of Oracle Corporation. 2. Documentation ---------------The following documentation is available for SQL*Plus Release 9.0.1 Production: A88826-01 A88827-01 A88828-01 A88829-01 iSQL*Plus User's Guide and Reference SQL*Plus User's Guide and Reference SQL*Plus Quick Reference SQL*Plus Getting Started for Windows

The SQL*Plus online help (HELP command) no longer contains information on SQL, or PL/SQL syntax. For information on SQL commands, see the Oracle9 SQL Reference. For information on PL/SQL commands, see the PL/SQL User's Guide and Reference. 3. New Features in SQL*Plus --------------------------SQL*Plus Release 9.0.1 Production is a superset of SQL*Plus 8.1. The following subsections describe new features introduced to SQL*Plus in this and previous releases. 3.1 New Features in SQL*Plus 9.0.1 Production --------------------------------------------The following commands or features have been modified or introduced: iSQL*Plus SET APPINFO Command line switches SET SQLPLUSCOMPATIBILITY / (slash) iSQL*Plus --------iSQL*Plus is a browser-based interface to SQL*Plus. iSQL*Plus is only available on the Microsoft Windows operating system. iSQL*Plus will be available on other platforms in future releases. For more information on iSQL*Plus, see the SQL*Plus release notes for Microsoft Windows. Read script from Uniform Resource Identifier -------------------------------------------A new command was added to read a SQL script from a Uniform Resource Identifier (URI). The ability to read a script from a URI is available in the @, @@ and START commands. The syntax is: @{uri|file_name[.ext]} [arg...]

@@file_name[.ext] STA[RT] {uri|file_name[.ext]} [arg...] uri Specifies a script to run on the specified web server. SQL*Plus supports HTTP, FTP and gopher protocols. Pass values to script variables in the usual way, for example: SQL>@http://host.domain/script.sql val1 val2 On a web server configured to serve SQL reports, you could request SQL*Plus to execute a dynamic script by using: SQL>@http://host.domain/scriptserver/?report=endofyear val1 val2 Note: This feature is only available on Microsoft Windows. SET APPINFO ----------The default for SET APPINFO has been changed to OFF. This allows some privileged DBA operations to be executed. Command line switches --------------------The version and usage command line switches have been standardized as: -V[ERSION] -H[HELP] Invalid options give the usage message corresponding to -HELP. The "-" and "-?" options have been obsoleted. Because they are now invalid options the usage message will be displayed if they are used. SET SQLPLUSCOMPATIBILITY -----------------------The behaviour or output format of some features may change in future versions of SQL*Plus. For these features, there is a new SET command, SET SQLPLUSCOMPATIBILITY {x.y[.z]}, to enable previous version behavior to be retained. The SQLPLUSCOMPATIBILITY setting does not affect any Release 9.0.1 functionality. SQLPLUSCOMPATIBILITY will only affect Oracle8i and later releases. In this release, SET SQLPLUSCOMPATIBILITY affects the way NCHAR and NVARCHAR2 definitions are interpreted in the VARIABLE command, and the way the /(slash) command is parsed. When SET SQLPLUSCOMPATIBILITY is set to a valid production release prior to Oracle Release 9.0.1, the following behavior is retained: - the SQL*Plus VARIABLE command retains Oracle8i behavior for NCHAR and NVARCHAR2 definitions. Oracle8i behavior enables the length n to be in bytes or characters depending on the chosen national character set. - /(slash) must be the first character on the line to be interpreted as a run command. See /(slash) command below. While the default value for SQLPLUSCOMPATIBILITY is the current

SQL*Plus version, 9.0.1, the default value of SQLPLUSCOMPATIBILITY set in glogin.sql is 8.1.7. This is to prevent compatibility issues with current Oracle8i installations caused by the behavior changes listed. / (slash) --------Parsing of the /(slash) command has changed. The new behavior in Release 9.0.1 permits spaces before the /(slash). Prior to this release, /(slash) was required to be the first character on the line. If you want the old behavior in Release 9.0.1, you must install patch 1776566. You can obtain this patch from Oracle Support Services. Once patch 1776566 is installed, you can enable the old /(slash) behavior with the SET SQLPLUSCOMPATIBILITY command. Example New Release 9.0.1 /(slash) Behavior SQL>SET SQLPLUSCOMPATIBILITY 9.0.1 SQL>select * from dual 2 / D --X Example Old /(slash) Behavior SQL>SET SQLPLUSCOMPATIBILITY 8.1.7 SQL>select * from dual 2 / 3 In this case, / is treated as a character and you are prompted for the next line. 3.2 New Features in SQL*Plus 8.1.7 Production --------------------------------------------The following commands or features have been modified or introduced: SQLPLUS -MARKUP and SET MARKUP COLUMN ENTMAP {ON|OFF} SQLPLUS -MARKUP and SET MARKUP -----------------------------Overview: You can use the MARKUP command to generate either a complete stand alone web page from your query or script, or HTML output which can be embedded in a web page. Use SQLPLUS -MARKUP HTML ON or SET MARKUP HTML ON SPOOL ON to produce standalone web pages. SQL*Plus will generate complete HTML pages automatically encapsulated with <HTML> and <BODY> tags. SQLPLUS -MARKUP HTML ON is useful when embedding SQL*Plus in program scripts. When SQL*Plus starts it outputs the HTML page prolog tags before executing any commands. Subsequent command output is marked up in HTML tags and the HTML output

is closed only when SQL*Plus terminates. The -SILENT and -RESTRICT command line options may be used in conjunction with -MARKUP. SET MARKUP HTML ON SPOOL ON will generate complete HTML pages for each subsequently spooled file. The HTML tags in a spool file are closed when SPOOL OFF is executed or SQL*Plus exits. You can use SET MARKUP HTML ON SPOOL OFF to generate HTML output suitable for embedding in an existing web page. Output generated this way has no <HTML> or <BODY> tags, but is marked up in HTML format. In this release, you can use MARKUP HTML ON to produce HTML output in either the <PRE> tag or in an HTML table. Output to a table uses standard HTML <TABLE>, <TR> and <TD> tags to automatically encode the rows and columns resulting from a query. Output to an HTML table is now the default behavior when the HTML option is set ON. You can generate output using HTML <PRE> tags by setting PREFORMAT ON. SQL*Plus gives you the power to embed your own tags in reports, titles or at any time in commands such as PROMPT. SQL*Plus does not restrict the use of these tags. It does not check the HTML syntax of user embedded tags. Syntax: The new MARKUP syntax for SQLPLUS -MARKUP and SET MARKUP is: HTML [ON|OFF] [HEAD text] [BODY text] [TABLE text] [ENTMAP {ON|OFF}] [SPOOL {ON|OFF}] [PRE[FORMAT] {ON|OFF}] Note: MARKUP arguments may also need to be contained in quotes on some operating systems. For further details about the MARKUP option, see Chapter 7 and the SET MARKUP command in Chapter 8 of the SQL*Plus User's Guide and Reference. COLUMN ENTMAP {ON|OFF} ---------------------A new option, ENTMAP {ON|OFF}, has been added to the COLUMN command to add flexibility for mapping entities. The default for COLUMN ENTMAP is the current value of the MARKUP HTML ENTMAP option. "ENTMAP {ON|OFF}" in the COLUMN command allows you to explicitly turn entity mapping on or off for selected columns in HTML output. This feature allows you to include, for example, HTML links in a column of data, while still automatically mapping entities in other data columns. By turning entity mapping off for a column containing HTML links, the HTML anchor tag delimiters ("<" and ">") are correctly interpreted in the report. Otherwise they would be replaced with their respective entities, &lt; and &gt;, preventing web browsers

from interpreting the HTML link. Entities in the column heading and any COMPUTE labels or output appearing in the column are mapped or not mapped according to the value of ENTMAP for the column. For further details about the COLUMN ENTMAP option, see the COLUMN command in Chapter 8 of the SQL*Plus User's Guide and Reference. 3.3 New Features in SQL*Plus 8.1.6 Production --------------------------------------------The following commands or features have been modified or introduced: SQLPLUS -MARKUP SET MARKUP SHOW MARKUP SQLPLUS -RESTRICT Help System SQLPLUS -MARKUP and SET MARKUP -----------------------------See Section 3.1 for the latest syntax and examples for SQLPLUS -MARKUP and SET MARKUP. SHOW MARKUP ----------A new system variable, MARKUP, has been created for use with SQLPLUS -MARKUP and SET MARKUP. You can use SHOW MARKUP to see the status of MARKUP options. SQLPLUS -RESTRICT ----------------The syntax for the SQLPLUS command is now: SQLPLUS [ [option] [logon] [start] ] where option has the following syntax: - | -? | [ [-M[ARKUP] markup_option] [-R[ESTRICT] level] [-S[ILENT]] ] See Section 3.1 for the latest syntax for -MARKUP markup_option. and where logon has the following syntax: username[/password][@net_service_name] | / | /NOLOG and where start has the following syntax: @filename[.ext] [parameter ...] The SQLPLUS -RESTRICT command option allows you to disable certain commands that interact with the operating system. This is similar to disabling the same commands in the Product User Profile (PUP) table. However, commands disabled with the -RESTRICT option are disabled even if there is no connection to a server, and remain disabled until SQL*Plus terminates. The restriction level must be between 1 and 3.

If the -RESTRICT option is not used, than all commands can be used, unless disabled in the PUP table. If -RESTRICT 3 is used, then login.sql is not read. Glogin.sql is read but restricted commands used will fail. The commands disabled in each restriction level are shown in the table below. Command Level 1 Level 2 Level 3 ------------------------------------------------------------EDIT disabled disabled disabled GET disabled HOST, ! disabled disabled disabled SAVE disabled disabled SPOOL disabled disabled START, @, @@ disabled STORE disabled disabled Help System ----------The SQL*Plus command line help system is now installed with SQL*Plus scripts. SQL*Loader is no longer required. A script to drop the help system is now supplied. If you need to install the help system manually, locate the directory containing the helpbld.sql and helpus.sql files (typically $ORACLE_HOME/sqlplus/admin/help) and run: sqlplus system/<system_password> @helpbld.sql helpus.sql Some operating systems automate this in a script file. The script is typically called 'helpins' or 'helpins.bat' and is located in the same directory as the Oracle executables. Refer to the comments in the top of the script for usage information, which may have changed since the previous release of SQL*Plus. The SQL*Plus script to remove the help system is called helpdrop.sql and is located in the same directory as helpbld.sql. To remove the help system run: sqlplus system/<system_password> @helpdrop.sql In this release, the help system is only available in English. Note the help system documents only SQL*Plus, not SQL or PL/SQL commands. 3.4 New Features in SQL*Plus 8.1.5 Production --------------------------------------------The following commands or features have been modified or introduced: SET SQLBLANKLINES SHOW SQLBLANKLINES SQL*Plus Messages

SET SQLBLANKLINES ----------------Controls whether SQL*Plus allows blank lines within a SQL command. ON interprets blank lines and new lines as part of a SQL command. OFF, the default value, does not allow blank lines or new lines in a SQL command. SQL*Plus returns to the default behavior when a SQLTERMINTATOR or BLOCKTERMINATOR is encountered. The syntax is: SET SQLBL[ANKLINES] {ON|OFF} SET SQLBLANKLINES OFF is the default. Example: -------SQL> SQL> 2 SQL> SQL> SQL> 2 3 4 5 6 7 D X SQL> SHOW SQLBLANKLINES -----------------The SHOW SQLBLANKLINES command displays whether the SET SQLBLANKLINES command is set ON or OFF. SQL*Plus allows blanklines in SQL commands when SET SQLBLANKLINES is ON. The syntax is: SHOW SQLBL[ANKLINES] SQL*Plus Messages ----------------The success message returned from any CREATE/ALTER/DROP SNAPSHOT or SNAPSHOT LOG commands has been altered to use the phrase "Materialized view". The terms "snapshot" and "materialized view" are synonymous. These commands are documented in the Oracle8 SQL Reference. For example: SQL> CREATE SNAPSHOT all_emps 2 AS SELECT * FROM emp; Materialized view created.

SET SQLBLANKLINES OFF select * SET SQLBLANKLINES ON select * from dual ;

3.5 New Features in SQL*Plus 8.1.4 Beta --------------------------------------The prefix for SQL*Plus Messages has changed for this release. SQL*Plus Messages ----------------SQL*Plus errors and messages now have a prefix of "SP2". The syntax of the error message is similar to that of the COPY command error messages, for example : SP2-0172: No HELP available or SP2-0691: expected SYSDBA or SYSOPER, not "scott" Usage: CONNECT <username> [AS {SYSDBA|SYSOPER}] 3.6 New Features in SQL*Plus 8.1.3 Beta --------------------------------------The following commands or features have been modified or introduced: ARCHIVE LOG DESCRIBE RECOVER SET AUTORECOVERY DESCRIBE INSTANCE LOGSOURCE SHOW AUTORECOVERY DESCRIBE INSTANCE LOGSOURCE PARAMETERS SGA SHUTDOWN STARTUP A discussion of each command follows. ARCHIVE LOG ----------Starts or stops automatic archiving of online redo log files, manually (explicitly) archives specified redo log files, or displays information about redo log files. The syntax is: ARCHIVE LOG {LIST|STOP}|{START|NEXT|ALL|integer} [TO destination] DESCRIBE -------The DESCRIBE command can now describe objects recursively to the level set in the SET DESCRIBE command. It can also display the line number and indentation of an attribute or column name when

an object contains multiple object types. Use the SET LINESIZE command to control the data display width. The syntax is: DESCRIBE {object} Example: -------To describe the table EMP, enter SQL>DESCRIBE EMP DESCRIBE lists the following information: Name Null ----------------------------------------- -------EMPLOYEE DEPT START_DATE POSITION SAL Type ------------------RECUR_PERSON RECUR_DEPARTMENT DATE VARCHAR2(1) RECUR_SALARY

To describe the table EMP to a depth of three levels, enter SQL>SET DESCRIBE DEPTH 3 LINENUM ON INDENT ON SQL>DESCRIBE EMP DESCRIBE lists for the following information: Name Null ------------------------------ -------EMPLOYEE NAME ADDR ADDR1 DOB GENDER DEPT DEPTNO DEPT_NAME LOCATION START_DATE POSITION SAL ANNUAL_SAL EMP_TYPE COMM PENALTY_RATE Type -------------------RECUR_PERSON VARCHAR2(20) RECUR_ADDRESS RECUR_ADDRESS1 DATE VARCHAR2(10) RECUR_DEPARTMENT NUMBER VARCHAR2(20) VARCHAR2(20) DATE VARCHAR2(1) RECUR_SALARY NUMBER(10,2) VARCHAR2(1) NUMBER(10,2) NUMBER(5,2)

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17

1 1 1 1 1 7 7 7

13 13 13 13

RECOVER ------Performs media recovery on one or more tablespaces, one or more datafiles, or the entire database. The syntax is: RECOVER [DATABSE [[UNTIL options] [USING BACKUP CONTROLFILE] [PARALLEL clause]] |TABLESPACE {tablespace [, tablespace ...]} [PARALLEL clause] |DATAFILE {datafilename [, datafilename ...]} [PARALLEL clause]]

where options requires the following syntax: {CANCEL|CHANGE integer|TIME date} and where clause requires the following syntax: {PARALLEL ([DEGREE {integer|DEFAULT} |INSTANCES {integer|DEFAULT}]...)|NOPARALLEL} SET Command ----------The SET command has four new clauses, AUTORECOVERY, DESCRIBE, INSTANCE, and LOGSOURCE. The SET AUTORECOVERY command sets the RECOVER command to automatically apply the default filenames of the archived redo log files needed during recovery. The syntax is: SET AUTORECOVERY {ON|OFF} The SET DESCRIBE command sets the level to describe objects in the DESCRIBE command. It also sets whether to display the line number and indentation when describing an object. The syntax is: SET DESCRIBE [option ...] where option requires the following syntax: [DEPTH {1|n|ALL}] [LINENUM {ON|OFF}] [INDENT {ON|OFF}] The default for SET DESCRIBE DEPTH is 1 and can be any figure between 1 and 50. SET DEPTH ALL describes all objects up to a depth of 50 levels. The default for SET DESCRIBE LINENUM is OFF. The default for SET DESCRIBE INDENT is OFF. The SET INSTANCE command changes the default instance for your session to the specified instance path. The syntax is: SET INSTANCE [instance_path|LOCAL] The SET LOGSOURCE command specifies the location from which archive logs are retrieved during recovery. The syntax is: SET LOGSOURCE [pathname] SHOW Command -----------The SHOW command has six new clauses, AUTORECOVERY, DESCRIBE, INSTANCE, LOGSOURCE, PARAMETERS, and SGA. The SHOW AUTORECOVERY command displays the setting for the SET AUTORECOVERY command. The syntax is:

SHOW AUTORECOVERY The SHOW DESCRIBE command displays the setting for the SET DESCRIBE command. The syntax is: SHOW DESCRIBE The SHOW INSTANCE command displays the setting for the SET INSTANCE command. The syntax is: SHOW INSTANCE The SHOW LOGSOURCE command displays the setting for the SET LOGSOURCE command. The syntax is: SHOW LOGSOURCE The SHOW PARAMETERS command displays the current values for one or more initialization parameters. You can use a string after the command to see a subset of parameters whose names include that string. The syntax is: SHOW PARAMETERS [parameter_name] The SHOW SGA command displays information about the current instance's System Global Area. The syntax is: SHOW SGA SHUTDOWN -------Shuts down a currently running Oracle instance, optionally closing and dismounting a database. The syntax is: SHUTDOWN [ABORT|IMMEDIATE|TRANSACTIONAL|NORMAL] SHUTDOWN NORMAL is the default. STARTUP ------Starts an Oracle instance with several options, including mounting, and opening a database. The syntax is: STARTUP [FORCE][RESTRICT][PFILE=filename][MOUNT[OPEN[RECOVER]] [database]][mount_options]|[NOMOUNT] where mount_options requires the following syntax: [EXCLUSIVE|[PARALLEL|SHARED][RETRY]] 3.7 New Features in SQL*Plus 8.0.5 Production ---------------------------------------------

The following commands or features have been modified or introduced: CONNECT ------The syntax of CONNECT command is extended to support the "mode" of connection. The syntax is: CONN[ECT] [logon] [AS [SYSOPER|SYSDBA]]|[INTERNAL] where logon requires the following syntax: username[/password][@database_specification]|/ 3.8 New Features in SQL*Plus 8.0.3 Production --------------------------------------------The following commands or features have been modified or introduced: CREATE TYPE DESCRIBE PASSWORD CONNECT SET MAXDATA CLOSECURSOR COMPATIBILITY CONSTRAINT NEWPAGE LOBOFFSET VARIABLE SHOW ERRORS ATTRIBUTE EXIT Version variable A discussion of each command follows. CREATE TYPE ----------The CREATE TYPE command is processed as a PL/SQL command. DESCRIBE -------The describe command now supports the following objects: TABLE/VIEW PROCEDURE/FUNCTION SYNONYM PACKAGE OBJECT TYPE PASSWORD -------Allows password to be change without echoing the password on an input device. The syntax is:

PASSW[ORD] [username] Where username specifies the user. If no username is given, the current user is used. To change the password of another user you must have been granted the appropriate privilege. CONNECT ------If you logon or connect as a user whose account has expired, you will be prompted to change your password before being allowed to connect. If the account it locked, a message is displayed and connection as this user is not permitted until the account is unlocked by your DBA. For more information on account management refer to the documentation on the CREATE and ALTER USER commands, and the CREATE PROFILE command in the "Oracle8 Server SQL Reference". SET Commands ------------ The SET MAXDATA and CLOSECURSOR commands have been obsoleted and have no effect in SQL*Plus 8.0.4 - The SET COMPATIBILITY command is modified for SQL*Plus 8.0.4. The syntax is: SET COM[PATIBILITY] {v7|v8|NATIVE} The default is NATIVE. You cannot use version 6 or lower with this version of SQL*Plus. - The SQL language SET CONSTRAINT command is supported. Refer to your SQL Language documentation for the syntax. - The SET NEWPAGE command has the new keyword NONE. The syntax is: SET NEWP[AGE] {1|n|NONE} The default is 1. SET NEWPAGE NONE prints no blank lines and no formfeed between report pages. For compatibility, SET NEWPAGE 0 prints a formfeed and no blank lines between pages. - The SET command now has a LOBOFFSET clause. The syntax is: SET LOBOF[FSET] {n|1} The default is 1. The LOBOFFSET clause sets the starting position from which CLOB and NCLOB data is retrieved and displayed. VARIABLE --------

The VARIABLE command now supports bind variables of following datatypes: NCHAR NVARCHAR2 NCLOB CLOB The maximum lengths of NCHAR and NVARCHAR2 bind variables is 2000 and 4000 respectively. For more information on these new datatypes please refer to the Oracle8 SQL Language documentation. The maximum lengths of CHAR and VARCHAR2 bind variables have been increased to 2000 and 4000 respectively. SHOW ERRORS ----------The syntax is: SHOW ERRORS [{FUNCTION|PROCEDURE|PACKAGE|PACKAGE BODY |TRIGGER|VIEW|TYPE|TYPE BODY} [schema.]name] ATTRIBUTE --------The ATTRIBUTE command has been introduced. It can be used to format the attribute of an object when that object is selected. The format of an attribute will not be affected when selected as object.attribute, however, the COLUMN command can be used in this case. The syntax is: ATTRIBUTE [type_name.attribute_name [option ...]] where option may be ALI[AS] alias CLE[AR] FOR[MAT] format LIKE {type_name.attribute_name|alias} ON|OFF Note that clearing columns will also clear all attributes. EXIT ---The EXIT command now allows numeric bind variables to be used. The syntax is: {EXIT|QUIT} [SUCCESS|FAILURE|WARNING|n|variable|:BindVariable] [COMMIT|ROLLBACK] Version Variable ---------------A new define variable _SQLPLUS_RELEASE contains a numeric form of the SQL*Plus release number. The format is the same as the Oracle Server release number _O_RELEASE already available.

4. Bugs Fixed ------------The following subsections list bugs fixed in SQL*Plus in this and previous releases. Numbers in parentheses following the problem description refer to bug numbers in the Oracle Bug Database. 4.1 Release 9.0.1 Production ------------------------------------ Recovery dialog no longer prompts for a log when end of disabled thread reached (1111709) - Recovery dialog no longer terminates when bad log name is entered (1169101) - Describe command can now describes synonyms based on schema object created with double quotes (1598520, 1217127, 1035350) - SQL*Plus now displays ORA-28002 when password expiry is in grace period (1326865) - SHOW ERRORS shows the errors for ALTER TYPE COMPILE BODY (1341524) - SQL*Plus now gives an error instead of prompting for a password when a user is not in the DBA group (1657213) - SQL*Plus now accepts scripts from the Operating System with a space between the '@' sign and the script name (1714104, 1617267) - SQL*Plus now handles input files that have a control/d (EOF) character (1265859) - "SP2-0614: Server version too low for this feature" will no longer appear when "glogin.sql" contains 'set serveroutput on' (1552238) - SQL*Plus now allows for blank spaces before the '/' to terminate and execute a PL/SQL block (1312929) - Internal code changes (1674627, 1705536, 1713564, 1265887, 1687097, 1698337, 1698361, 1698379, 1698422, 1702306, 1705970, 1706081, 1707889, 1715102, 1715112, 1715121, 1716888) 4.1 Release 9.0.0 Beta ---------------------- An abnormal termination when re-executing a select with a break statement has been fixed (996778) - The TABLE clause was added to SET MARKUP usage message (1288901) - AUTOTRACE no longer gives an error for small values of ARRAYSIZE (1364197) - Some problems with SHOW ERRORS for Java source with multibyte characters have been fixed (1458572) - The usage statement is no longer displayed when issuing a valid

'SHOW ERRORS' command for a Java source/class (1485281) - HTML tags for output after a SKIP are now valid (1477515) - A problem with HTML tag markup and BTITLE has been fixed (1477529) - Numeric variables in titles are no longer displayed correctly if a NULL value is the first data item selected (1265664) - DESCRIBE object does not give consistent information for object type method has been fixed (997861) - SQL*Plus bind variable assignment results in a 'PLS-00553' error if issued within the same SQL*Plus session used to shutdown and restart the database (1335603) - Compilation of a Java source results in SQL*Plus hanging when the character set is a multi-byte character set (1381064) - Now when MARKUP HTML OFF is issued, no HTML output is produced. It does not matter if MARKUP HTML SPOOL is ON or OFF (1420656) - An invalid password change issued from the SQL*Plus PASSWORD command should not disconnect the user (1620381) - SET AUTOTRACE ON does not work with certain character set on the client side. It results in ORA-00923 (1200008) - SQL*Plus should allow CONNECT AS SYSDBA when instance is hung (1508783) - Internal code changes (1290197, 1301950, 1353644, 1286724) 4.2 Release 8.1.7 Production ---------------------------- The command line length is now set to 5120 characters on both NT and Solaris platforms, instead of just NT (646064) - The status of ENTMAP was being altered by other HTML options (1001773) - When an object name is longer than 30 bytes, SQL*Plus returns SP2-565 error. Sometimes it is possible that object name is longer that 30 bytes for multibyte character sets (664798) - SQL*Plus goes into an infinite loop and eventually terminates abnormally when an operating system environment variable value is provided for the NLS_DATE_FORMAT variable (695579) - Describe synonym via database link will result in ORA-04043 error (763958) - Define variable names defined by ACCEPT were restricted to English characters for single-byte character sets. Using DEFINE with an invalid variable name did not display an error message (842798) - Fixed various memory access errors and small leaks for error conditions when selecting object types that SQL*Plus cannot convert to a text representation (984823, 886471)

- Fixed a memory access error when printing some error messages (1159255) - SQL*Plus must trap for the server status and handle accordingly to allow re-connection after a server status changes (949590) - An abnormal termination was occurring when first logging in to SQL*Plus and then issuing a "SHOW ERRORS PROCEDURE 'procname'" or " print ''test'' " (954433) - SQL*Plus now does not issue a recovery unless the OPEN fails with recovery needed error (963874) - Set instance does not give message to indicate the status of the instance just set (977041) - Include quote for the head & body option for the markup command when issuing the store command (989120) - When selecting CLOB column with Japanese character set, some chars were missing (1008404) - The default html title is not being displayed in the appropriate language for a given character set. It always in English (989596) - Inconsistent case for meta tag in set markup html command (994545) - SQL*Plus uses wrong MODE for the SYSOPER connection (1002732) - The DBA command RECOVER, ORADEBUG, ARCHIVE LOG do not preprocess '&' substitution variables (1009546) - SQL*Plus must re-attach for connection following a connect internal (1018626) - Set appinfo command returns error message even server is geater than V7 database (1043461) - An abnormal termination was occurring on some platforms if a DESCRIBE command was issued with the LINESIZE set to one less than a multiple of four (eg. 131) (1069320) - Can not login as internal for non-DBA group user when enter password separately (1078060) - Column not displayed correctly with shift sensitive characters (1114517) - Value function unable to display attribute of type raw (1129911) - Show errors prints incorrect message for java object that has compilation errors (1132921) - SQL*Plus need to trap for server session status to allows for subsequence connection after a server session status has changed (1134891) - Select join aggregate group by parallel results in ORA-24347 and "No row selected" (1149002)

- If NLS_LANG is set to an EBCDIC character set on an ASCII platform, SQL*Plus gives various odd errors when setting the _EDITOR value and fails to start. It is not valid to use EBCDIC characters sets in non ECDIC environments. The detection of some (known) invalid character sets has been added. At startup SQL*Plus now prints an error "Invalid NLS character set for this OS environment. Error 19 initializing SQL*Plus" and returns to the operating system prompt (1167044) - Using 'alter user password expire;' option produces an Ora-988 error in SQL*PLUS when user logs in and is prompted to change password (1225555) - HTML entity mapping does not convert double quotes (1227772) - SQL*Plus does not free temporary lob after data is fetched and displayed (1282663) - Internal code changes (984823, 886471, 1159255, 1015221, 1015235, 1086606, 1087990, 1093771, 1097298, 1179762, 1186233, 1194429, 1221856, 1272028, 1283615, 1312546) 4.3 Release 8.1.6 Production ---------------------------- On Windows NT, errors from trying to run a console file are now echoed to spool files (617398) - When connected to a V7 database using a V8 SQL*Plus client, changing the date format with 'ALTER SESSION' no longer has the potential to truncate the displayed dates (663806) - SQL*Plus on Windows NT and UNIX now have similar output for HELP, BREAK, and SET TIMING (690909, 874656) - The statistics for AUTOTRACE now report only on the user SQL. The AUTOTRACE features also works for externally authenticated ("OPS$") users (690925) - The initial extent size of the HELP table has been reduced (691638) - Dynamic SQL compilation errors within PL/SQL blocks are now trapped. Use the expliction object name with SHOW ERRORS to view the warnings (716198) - Some internal functions were changed to handle 8-bit data (727622) - SHOW ERROR now handles case conversion of names in the server character set (730690) - The default format for number types in collections is now the same as for scalar columns (731416) - SHOW PARAMETER no longer truncates names or values. The "IFILE" parameter now displays the correct type. Parameter names used in "SHOW PARAMETERS <parameter_name>" are no longer case sensitive (733501, 959439)

- SET LOGSOURCE "" is now accepted. This allows files created with the STORE SET command to be loaded without error (734764) - A memory access error with SET AUTOTRACE was fixed (746313) - Some internal changes to SET DESCRIBE were made (751078, 933606) - SET AUTOTRACE shows the correct output when using stored outlines (757580) - SHOW PARAMETER now orders output so the parameters that can have multiple initialization file entries are listed in the order they were written (776577) - A memory access error that occurred on some operating systems with the COPY command has been fixed (785150) - A memory leak when selecting from VARRAYS no longer occurs and memory use has been optimized (691247) - A problem preventing users being prompted to change their expired password in some cases has been fixed (697133) - A problem connecting to SQL*Plus when in the password expiry grace period is fixed (739529) - A number of problems with the STARTUP and SHUTDOWN commands have been resolved (731789, 758873, 771058, 777723, 777732, 770840, 780377, 781702, 790865, 820739, 836631, 861750, 877682, 928680, 939122, 957368) - SET AUTOTRACE TRACEONLY no longer causes an abnormal termination when connected as internal (755620) - Substitution ('&') variables can now be used in the STARTUP and SHUTDOWN commands (777617) - Some internal changes were made for message handling (812337, 826100, 869496) - A DESCRIBE formatting problem occurring on several platforms has been fixed (813744) - A memory access error no longer occurs when using SQL commands with long initial keyword string (eg. CREATE OR REPLACE AND RESOLVE NOFORCE JAVA) has been fixed (815059) - Error messages from STARTUP and SHUTDOWN now have individual error messages (820683) - A memory access error for the PRINT command has been fixed (836620) - An abnormal termination doing a DESCRIBE with a large LINESIZE has been fixed (842965) - A problem displaying report output in the KO16DBCS character set was fixed (870090) - The character mode SQL*PLus on Windows NT can now have input redirected into it (874666)

- A problem connecting with usernames containing Latin-1 characters has been fixed (876573) - SQL*Plus now resyncronizes with the server character set after CREATE DATABASE commands (877018) - Entering "/nolog" at the "Username:" prompt no longer causes an abnormal termination. The "/nolog" option is valid only as a parameter to the "sqlplus" command (887502) - A problem causing ORA-1458 when using COPY has been fixed (898213) - The HIREDATE field of the EMP demonstration table is now created with explict four digit years (911745) - SQL*Plus supports the new connection syntax of Net8 (913977) - A success message is now printed for the RECOVER command (923081) - The SET DESCRIBE usage message is no longer hard coded and may now be translated (930478) - A duplicate 'rm' entry in the ins_sqlplus.mk file has been removed (933662) - The feedback message for ALTER DATABASE is no longer printed for unsuccessful commands (955315) - A duplicate error message when attempting to connect with an invalid service name no longer occurs (957653) - Errors when "connect internal" fails are now displayed (971223) - Some new DATETIME and interval types can be described (975262) - Collections no longer have extraneous NULLs displayed (993216) - Internal code changes (1010644, 704182, 754503, 759630, 825347, 874808, 892013, 896196, 903144) 4.4 Release 8.1.5 Production ---------------------------- SQL*Plus now accepts a Net8 net service name at the password prompt eg. Enter password: pw@net_service_name (716295) - Schema names are no longer truncated when describing types (729459) - Changes were made to parsing usernames, passwords and net service names. Preceding and embedded whitespace, and quotes are handled better (731901, 745122, 662178) - Describing a type with attributes of large size no longer causes a memory exception (745289) - The EXECUTE command now works in I18N mode (728349) - The capitalization of the statistics feedback messages was

corrected (734703) - Using an uninitialized bind variable in an EXIT statement no longer causes an abnormal termination (692895) - Internal changes (718668, 719337, 719339, 734189) 4.5 Release 8.1.4 Beta ---------------------- The maximum length for spool file names was increased. Error checking was improved to prevent a core dump with long names (690415) - SQL*Plus nows displays a user error message instead of an internal error when selecting from a nested table or varray of raw (726753) - Corrected some command usage messages and regularized some error messages (672460) - A display bug for multi-byte column names with shift-in/out bytes has been fixed (695505) - The SQL*Net network service name is no longer ignored after an ORA-1017 occurs (695663) - Selecting a number column with a to_char(col, 'FM99') conversion no longer displays an extra character (644529) - Internal changes (664915, 700687, 702954, 719356) 4.6 Release 8.1.3 Beta ---------------------- ORA-01089 WHILE CONNECT INTERNAL (642150) - WHEN INSTANCE IDLE, CONNECT INTERNAL SHOULD SHOW CONNECTED TO IDLE INSTANCE (633194) - SET INSTANCE INSTANCE_NAME IS NOT SUPPORTED IN SQLPLUS (630142) - DESCRIBE OBJECT TYPE WITH METHOD RESULT ORA-24328 (663606) - DESCRIBE A TYPE DOES NOT DISPLAY THE SCHEMA OF THE TYPES OF ITS ATTRIBUTES (654349) - DESCRIBE <TYPE> FAILS IF ITS ATTRIBUTES ARE IN A DIFFERENT SCHEMA. (657660) - CAN NOT DESCRIBE A SYNONYM WHICH POINTS TO A REMOTE OBJECT (624720) - RECONNECCT AFTER ALTER USER USER1 PASSWORD EXPIRE WILL RESULT DISCONNECT (661550) - SQLPLUS EXITS WITH MULTIPLE ORA-1012S AND MEMORY ERROR AFTER INVALID 'CONNECT' (661485) - STARTUP USING SQLPLUS GETS ERROR MESSAGES (BUT SUCCEEDS) (655716)

- SQLCODE NOT AFFECTED BY SUCCESSFUL STATEMENT (650528) - SQLPLUS CORE DUMPS WHEN SUBSTITUTION STRING IS TOO LONG (646064) - STARTUP WITH PFILE SPECIFIED RESULT LRM-00109 AND ORA-01078 (639811) - SHOW ALL SHOW SHIFTINOUT IN WRONG POSITION (594672) - Internal code changes (656797, 664915, 666769, 671924, 642147, 660109, 664921) 5. Known Restrictions --------------------* Starting a file from a universal resource indicator (using the "@URI" syntax) is only available on Windows NT/2000, and not other platforms. * Columns of type NCLOB cannot be formatted with WORD_WRAPPING. When the "COLUMN" command is used to format such columns with the "WORD_WRAP" option, the column data will WRAP instead of WORD_WRAP. * Non-blocking database calls are not supported by the new interface to the Oracle8 server. This does not affect multi-tasking operating systems. * Querying of LONG columns requires enough local memory to store the amount of data, as specified by the value of SET LONG command, irrespective of the value of the SET LONGCHUNKSIZE command. * When connected to a V7 server, the syntax for the DESCRIBE command is DESCRIBE {[schema.]object[.subobject|@db_link] [column]} which is the same as SQL*Plus version 3 (released with V7). * Some privileged connections to the server may generate errors if the SET SERVEROUTPUT or SET APPINFO commands have been put in the global initialization file (glogin.sql) or local file (login.sql). 6. Desupport Notices -------------------This section gives advance notice of the desupport of SQL*Plus commands and interfaces. It is not official notice of desupport dates, nor is it intended to replace the Oracle obsolesence process. This information provides you with advance warning that Oracle Corporation intends to desupport these features/interfaces in upcoming releases. Oracle Corporation does not intend to support these features/interfaces beyond the Oracle9i support dates, and they may not be available in future versions. COPY Command -----------The COPY command will be obsoleted in future releases of SQL*Plus. COPY supports the datatypes listed in the SQL*Plus User's Guide and

Reference, but no new datatypes will be supported. Windows Graphical User Interface -------------------------------The SQL*Plus for Windows graphical user interface (GUI) will be desupported in future releases of SQL*Plus. The browser-based iSQL*Plus interface will replace the SQL*Plus for Windows GUI. The SQL*Plus for Windows command line (DOS) interface will continue to be supported. End of Release Bulletin. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------README.doc README.doc README.doc README.doc README.doc README.doc -------------------------------------------------------------------------------