Basic Syntax

PL/SQL is a block-structured language, meaning that PL/SQL programs are divided and written in logical blocks of code. Each block consists of three sub-parts:

S.N. Sections & Description
1 Declarations

This section starts with the keyword DECLARE. It is an optional section and defines all variables, cursors, subprograms, and other elements to be used in the program.

2 Executable Commands

This section is enclosed between the keywords BEGIN and END and it is a mandatory section. It consists of the executable PL/SQL statements of the program. It should have at least one executable line of code, which may be just a NULL command to indicate that nothing should be executed.

3 Exception Handling

This section starts with the keyword EXCEPTION. This section is again optional and contains exception(s) that handle errors in the program.

Every PL/SQL statement ends with a semicolon (;). PL/SQL blocks can be nested within other PL/SQL blocks using BEGIN and END. Here is the basic structure of a PL/SQL block:

DECLARE
   <declarations section>
BEGIN
   <executable command(s)>
EXCEPTION
   <exception handling>
END;
The 'Hello World' Example:
DECLARE
   message  varchar2(20):= 'Hello, World!';
BEGIN
   dbms_output.put_line(message);
END;
/
The end; line signals the end of the PL/SQL block. To run the code from SQL command line, you may need to type / at the beginning of the first blank line after the last line of the code. When the above code is executed at SQL prompt, it produces the following result:

Hello World

PL/SQL procedure successfully completed.
The PL/SQL Identifiers
PL/SQL identifiers are constants, variables, exceptions, procedures, cursors, and reserved words. The identifiers consist of a letter optionally followed by more letters, numerals, dollar signs, underscores, and number signs and should not exceed 30 characters.

By default, identifiers are not case-sensitive. So you can use integer or INTEGER to represent a numeric value. You cannot use a reserved keyword as an identifier.

The PL/SQL Delimiters
A delimiter is a symbol with a special meaning. Following is the list of delimiters in PL/SQL:

Delimiter Description
+, -, *, / Addition, subtraction/negation, multiplication, division
% Attribute indicator
' Character string delimiter
. Component selector
(,) Expression or list delimiter
: Host variable indicator
, Item separator
" Quoted identifier delimiter
= Relational operator
@ Remote access indicator
; Statement terminator
:= Assignment operator
=> Association operator
|| Concatenation operator
** Exponentiation operator
<<, >> Label delimiter (begin and end)
/*, */ Multi-line comment delimiter (begin and end)
-- Single-line comment indicator
.. Range operator
<, >, <=, >= Relational operators
<>, '=, ~=, ^= Different versions of NOT EQUAL

The PL/SQL Comments
Program comments are explanatory statements that you can include in the PL/SQL code that you write and helps anyone reading its source code. All programming languages allow for some form of comments.

The PL/SQL supports single-line and multi-line comments. All characters available inside any comment are ignored by PL/SQL compiler. The PL/SQL single-line comments start with the delimiter -- (double hyphen) and multi-line comments are enclosed by /* and */.

DECLARE
   -- variable declaration
   message  varchar2(20):= 'Hello, World!';
BEGIN
   /*
    *  PL/SQL executable statement(s)
    */
   dbms_output.put_line(message);
END;
/
When the above code is executed at SQL prompt, it produces the following result:

Hello World

PL/SQL procedure successfully completed.
PL/SQL Program Units
A PL/SQL unit is any one of the following:

PL/SQL block

Function

Package

Package body

Procedure

Trigger

Type

Type body

Each of these units will be discussed in the forthcoming chapters.