Database Programming with

PL/SQL
2-2
Recognizing PL/SQL Lexical Units

Copyright © 2020, Oracle and/or its affiliates. All rights reserved.

Objectives
• This lesson covers the following objectives:
−List and define the different types of lexical units available in
PL/SQL
−Describe identifiers and identify valid and invalid identifiers in
PL/SQL
−Describe and identify reserved words, delimiters, literals, and
comments in PL/SQL

PLSQL 2-2 Copyright © 2020, Oracle and/or its affiliates. All rights reserved. 3
Recognizing PL/SQL Lexical Units
Purpose
• A spoken language has different parts of speech
• Each part of speech (such as an adjective, noun, and
verb) is used differently and must follow rules
• Similarly, a programming language has different parts
of speech that are used differently and must follow
rules
• These parts of speech are called lexical units

PLSQL 2-2 Copyright © 2020, Oracle and/or its affiliates. All rights reserved. 4
Recognizing PL/SQL Lexical Units
Lexical Units in a PL/SQL Block
• Lexical units:
−Are the building blocks of any PL/SQL block
−Are sequences of characters including letters, digits, tabs,
returns, and symbols
• Can be classified as:
−Identifiers
−Reserved words
−Delimiters
−Literals
−Comments

PLSQL 2-2 Copyright © 2020, Oracle and/or its affiliates. All rights reserved. 5
Recognizing PL/SQL Lexical Units
Identifiers
• An identifier is the name given to a PL/SQL object,
including any of the following:
Procedure Function Variable
Exception Constant Package
Record PL/SQL table Cursor
• Do not be concerned if you do not know what all of the
above objects are
• You will learn about PL/SQL objects throughout this
course

PLSQL 2-2 Copyright © 2020, Oracle and/or its affiliates. All rights reserved. 6
Recognizing PL/SQL Lexical Units
Identifiers Highlighted
• Several identifiers are highlighted in the PL/SQL code
shown below
CREATE PROCEDURE print_date IS

v_date VARCHAR2(30);

BEGIN

SELECT TO_CHAR(SYSDATE,'Mon DD, YYYY')

INTO v_date
FROM DUAL;
DBMS_OUTPUT.PUT_LINE(v_date);

END;
• Key: Variables Packages Procedures Functions

PLSQL 2-2 Copyright © 2020, Oracle and/or its affiliates. All rights reserved. 7
Recognizing PL/SQL Lexical Units
Identifier Properties
• Identifiers:
− Maximum 30 characters in length
− Must begin with a letter
− May include $ (dollar sign), _ (underscore),
or # (hashtag)
− May not contain spaces
− Identifiers are NOT case sensitive
• Be sure to name your objects carefully
• Ideally, the identifier name should describe the object and
its purpose
• Avoid using identifier names such as A, X, Y1, temp, etc.,
because they make your code more difficult to read

PLSQL 2-2 Copyright © 2020, Oracle and/or its affiliates. All rights reserved. 8
Recognizing PL/SQL Lexical Units
Valid and Invalid Identifiers
• Examples of valid identifiers:
First_Name LastName address_1
ID# Total_$ primary_department_contact

• Examples of invalid identifiers:

First Name Contains a space
Last-Name Contains invalid symbol "-"
1st_address_line Begins with a number
Total_% Contains invalid symbol "%"
primary_building_department_contact More than 30 characters

PLSQL 2-2 Copyright © 2020, Oracle and/or its affiliates. All rights reserved. 9
Recognizing PL/SQL Lexical Units
Reserved Words
• Reserved words are words that have special meaning
to the Oracle database
• Reserved words cannot be used as identifiers in a
PL/SQL program

PLSQL 2-2 Copyright © 2020, Oracle and/or its affiliates. All rights reserved. 10
Recognizing PL/SQL Lexical Units
Partial List of Reserved Words
• The following is a partial list of reserved words
ALL CREATE FROM MODIFY SELECT
ALTER DATE GROUP NOT SYNONYM
AND DEFAULT HAVING NULL SYSDATE
ANY DELETE IN NUMBER TABLE
AS DESC INDEX OR THEN
ASC DISTINCT INSERT ORDER UPDATE
BETWEEN DROP INTEGER RENAME VALUES
CHAR ELSE INTO ROW VARCHAR2
COLUMN EXISTS IS ROWID VIEW
COMMENT FOR LIKE ROWNUM WHERE

• Note: For more information, refer to the “PL/SQL

User’s Guide and Reference”
PLSQL 2-2 Copyright © 2020, Oracle and/or its affiliates. All rights reserved. 11
Recognizing PL/SQL Lexical Units
Using Reserved Words
• What happens when you try to use a reserved word as
an identifier in a PL/SQL program?
DECLARE
date DATE;
BEGIN
SELECT ADD_MONTHS(SYSDATE,3) INTO date
FROM dual;
END;
ORA-06550: line 4, column 37:
PL/SQL: ORA-00936: missing expression
ORA-06550: line 4, column 3:
PL/SQL: SQL Statement ignored
2. date DATE;
3. BEGIN
4. SELECT ADD_MONTHS(SYSDATE,3) INTO date
5. FROM DUAL;
6. END;

PLSQL 2-2 Copyright © 2020, Oracle and/or its affiliates. All rights reserved. 12
Recognizing PL/SQL Lexical Units
Delimiters
• Delimiters are symbols that have special meaning
• Simple delimiters consist of one character

Symbol Meaning
+ addition operator
- subtraction/negation operator
* multiplication operator
/ division operator
= equality operator
' character string delimiter

; statement terminator

PLSQL 2-2 Copyright © 2020, Oracle and/or its affiliates. All rights reserved. 13
Recognizing PL/SQL Lexical Units
Delimiters
• Compound delimiters consist of two characters

Symbol Meaning
<> inequality operator
!= inequality operator
|| concatenation operator
-- single-line comment indicator
/* beginning comment delimiter
*/ ending comment delimiter
** exponent
:= assignment operator

PLSQL 2-2 Copyright © 2020, Oracle and/or its affiliates. All rights reserved. 14
Recognizing PL/SQL Lexical Units
Literals
• A literal is an explicit numeric, character string, date, or
Boolean value that might be stored in a variable
• Literals are classified as:
−Character (also known as string literals)
−Numeric
−Boolean

PLSQL 2-2 Copyright © 2020, Oracle and/or its affiliates. All rights reserved. 15
Recognizing PL/SQL Lexical Units
Character Literals
• May include any printable character in the PL/SQL
character set: letters, numerals, spaces, and symbols
• Typically defined using the VARCHAR2 data type
• Must be enclosed by character string delimiters (')
• Can be composed of zero or more characters
• Are case sensitive; therefore, PL/SQL is NOT equivalent
to pl/sql

PLSQL 2-2 Copyright © 2020, Oracle and/or its affiliates. All rights reserved. 16
Recognizing PL/SQL Lexical Units
Character Literals
• The following are examples of character literals being
assigned to variables
• The literals are the characters between the single
quotes (the character string delimiters) and are shown
here in red text for emphasis
DECLARE
v_firstname VARCHAR2(30) := 'John';
v_classroom VARCHAR2(4) := '12C';
v_course_id VARCHAR2(8 := 'CS 101';
BEGIN
…

PLSQL 2-2 Copyright © 2020, Oracle and/or its affiliates. All rights reserved. 17
Recognizing PL/SQL Lexical Units
Numeric Literals
• Literals that represent numbers are numeric literals
• Numeric literals can be a simple value
(ex. 5, -32.5, 127634, 3.141592)
• Scientific notation also may be used
(ex. 2E5, meaning 2*(10 to the power of 5)
• Typically defined using the NUMBER data type

PLSQL 2-2 Copyright © 2020, Oracle and/or its affiliates. All rights reserved. 18
Recognizing PL/SQL Lexical Units
Numeric Literals
• The following are examples of numeric literals being
assigned to variables (and one constant)
• The literals are shown here in red text for emphasis

DECLARE
v_classroom NUMBER(3) := 327;
v_grade NUMBER(3) := 95;
v_price NUMBER(5) := 150;
v_salary NUMBER(8) := 2E5;
c_pi CONSTANT NUMBER(7,6) := 3.141592;
BEGIN
…

PLSQL 2-2 Copyright © 2020, Oracle and/or its affiliates. All rights reserved. 19
Recognizing PL/SQL Lexical Units
Boolean Literals
• Values that are assigned to Boolean variables are
Boolean literals
• TRUE, FALSE, and NULL are the Boolean literals

DECLARE
v_new_customer BOOLEAN := FALSE;
v_fee_paid BOOLEAN := TRUE;
v_diploma BOOLEAN := NULL;
BEGIN
…
• Note that character string delimiters are not required

PLSQL 2-2 Copyright © 2020, Oracle and/or its affiliates. All rights reserved. 20
Recognizing PL/SQL Lexical Units
Comments
• Comments explain what a piece of code is trying to
achieve
• Well-placed comments are extremely valuable for code
readability and future code maintenance
• Comments should describe the purpose and use of
each block of code
• It is good programming practice to comment code
• Comments are ignored by PL/SQL
• They make no difference to how a PL/SQL block
executes or the results it displays

PLSQL 2-2 Copyright © 2020, Oracle and/or its affiliates. All rights reserved. 21
Recognizing PL/SQL Lexical Units
Syntax for Commenting Code
• Two ways to indicate comments in PL/SQL
• When commenting a single line, use two dashes (--)
• When commenting multiple lines, begin the comment
with /* and end the comment with */
DECLARE
-- converts monthly salary to annual salary
v_montly_sal NUMBER(9,2);
v_annual_sal NUMBER(9,2);
BEGIN -- begin executable section
…
/* Compute the annual salary based on the
monthly salary input from the user */
v_annual_sal := v_monthly_sal * 12;
END; -- end block

PLSQL 2-2 Copyright © 2020, Oracle and/or its affiliates. All rights reserved. 22
Recognizing PL/SQL Lexical Units
Terminology
• Key terms used in this lesson included:
−Lexical units
−Identifiers
−Reserved words
−Delimiters
−Literals
−Comments

PLSQL 2-2 Copyright © 2020, Oracle and/or its affiliates. All rights reserved. 23
Recognizing PL/SQL Lexical Units
Summary
• In this lesson, you should have learned how to:
−List and define the different types of lexical units available in
PL/SQL
−Describe identifiers and identify valid and invalid identifiers in
PL/SQL
−Describe and identify reserved words, delimiters, literals, and
comments in PL/SQL

PLSQL 2-2 Copyright © 2020, Oracle and/or its affiliates. All rights reserved. 24
Recognizing PL/SQL Lexical Units