When demonstrating SQLcl, I get the feeling that half of the audience is filled with dread.
Yes, they love everything that I’m showing them.
But deep, deep down they are scared that the things they personally liked in SQL*Plus are going away.
I’m here today to alleviate those concerns.
Instead of asking you to just take my word for it, I’ll show you.
Now of course you COULD just download it yourself and have a go, but folks are busy, and I understand.
The CHANGE Command
I just always knew it as ‘c’ as in C/OLD/NEW. It’s a bit more complicated than that [Docs], but here goes.
Clik here to view.
You can now also set your editor to SQLcl’s inline editor and just arrow around your buffer and change stuff as you please…
& and &&
I know that looks funny, but you know what I mean, and…
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Prompts for value each time…
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Reuses value from query to query
Your Prompt
The PROMPT and pretty much all of the other program specific settings can still be managed with the SET command.
Like this one…
SET SQLPROMPT “_USER’@’_CONNECT_IDENTIFIER _DATE> ”
Clik here to view.
You’re seen Kris’ beer emoji prompts, yes?
A Side-Bar On Prompts
I’ve been chided by my boss to show the ‘cool’ PROMPT.
Since we’re a Java application, Unicode support is a given.
So, if your OS supports Unicode character display in your terminal window, then you can do cool things like this:
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Do you even SQLDev?
You can find a lot of the unicode emoji’s here.
Someone who has Windows 10, let me know if their CMD window has gotten any better. In Windows 7 I was unable to get this to ‘work’ in the default terminal or even a newer one like ConEmu64.
SET SQLPROMPT “_USER’@’_CONNECT_IDENTIFIER Image may be NSFW.
Clik here to view.
> ” #FTW
Back to SET Commands…
A simple ‘SHOW ALL’ does just that. But, if you say HELP SHOW, you will see all of the things we can show.
Clik here to view.
Show me yours, and…
Other Things
Yes, you can still use a LOGIN or GLOGIN script. Yes, you can insist on using DESC even though INFO is waaaaay better.
Our intent was not to break anything SQL*Plus offered, but to extend it with all the new stuff you’ve been seeing us add over the past year.
Still don’t believe me? That’s probably good, better to trust but verify.
If you have a question or if you are curious about a specific SQL*Plus ‘thing’ – drop me a note in the comments and I’ll reply as best I can.