SQL*Plus: Oracle's Swiss Army Knife

For a very long time, Oracle has shipped with the SQL*Plus application as standard.

There are different versions for different operating systems but users will, most commonly, come across the versions for Microsoft Windows and those for the Unix family. The difference between these is that the Windows version is a fairly basic application whereas that for Unix is a very powerful tool indeed because it allows you to use it as a standard command line application like any other, so permitting its use in complicated shell scripts.

What a lot of people don't realise is: there's a CLI version of SQL*Plus installed along with the not terribly useful Windows version which, within the limitations of Windows, permits all the flexibility of the Unix variant.




Once you know this, your ability to automate Oracle tasks on Windows is increased dramatically. While not quite as flexible as the Unix version, due to the limitations of Windows, there are still many things you can do that are just too much of a pain when using the GUI version.