Standards and assumptions

Unless otherwise stated, the environment used in the examples and referred to throughout the book is Oracle Database 11g Release 1, installed on Microsoft Windows XP. We use the shipped Oracle sample schemas, in addition to using the SYSTEM and SYS users.

Oracle offers a free database, Oracle Express Edition 10g (XE), which you can download and use for many of the examples. Some of the discussion is related to new Oracle Database 11g functionality that is not available on any Oracle Database 10g release, including XE. In the case where the feature is Oracle Database 11g specific, the text will indicate this. However, the text does not list anomalies for each database version.

This book was written using and is based on Oracle SQL Developer 2.1. Screenshots and menu items all refer to SQL Developer 2.1 and were accurate at the time of writing, completed just prior to the production release of the software. Minor differences are inevitable due to changes in the later stages of product development prior to production. You can also use the book, and much of the content, as a guide for working with earlier releases of SQL Developer. Where they are significant, we make note of the differences in features that have changed from earlier releases.