Skip to main content

Quick Guide to Some Sources for Naming Conventions for Oracle Database Development

I occasionally am asked about naming conventions for PL/SQL program units.

I did publish a document back in 2009 (link below), but there are also other sources for naming conventions from others, offering different ideas and excellent motivation for standardizing the way you write your code. I have collected links to them here.

The most important thing about naming conventions is BE CONSISTENT.

PL/SQL Naming Conventions and Coding Standards - Steven Feuerstein 2009

Coding Standards for SQL and PL/SQL - William Robertson

ORACLE-BASE / Tim Hall / Oracle Naming Conventions

Trivadis PL/SQL and SQL Coding Guidelines Version 2.0

Ask Tom on Naming Conventions

 PL/SQL and SQL naming conventions

Oracle SQL and PL/SQL Coding Standards – Cat Herding for Dummies

Slideshare Presentation on PL/SQL Coding Conventions

Labels:

Comments

  1. SanthoshOctober 24, 2016 at 10:51 AM

    Thanks Steven for the post.

    The first link which you have published back in 2009,is not working and giving "404 Not Found!" error.

    Could you please check.

    Thanks
    Santhosh

    ReplyDelete
  2. Steven FeuersteinOctober 24, 2016 at 11:00 AM

    Apologies. That SHOULD have worked, but I should have tested it. I have uploaded the document to OTN, and the link now reflects that.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. SanthoshOctober 24, 2016 at 11:02 AM

      Thanks for the quick action, will check it now.

      Thanks again Steven.

      Delete
  3. DanielOctober 26, 2016 at 12:52 AM

    "The most important factor in a name is that it concisely (not that we have any choice about that with a limit of 30 characters!) " What about 12.2 :=)

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Steven FeuersteinOctober 26, 2016 at 5:24 AM

      You are right, Daniel. Now we have choice AND responsibility. Of course, a name can be concise when using 50 characters. It depends on what you are trying or need to say - or you are using German. :-)

      Delete
    2. DanielOctober 26, 2016 at 6:59 AM

      Responsibility was the word. The total length of an identifier, schema.tabel.column might be veeeery long. :)
      Gonna be interesting to see how people use this "feature"

      Delete
    3. Steven FeuersteinOctober 26, 2016 at 11:15 AM

      I expect that it will be used as follows: I type a name, it's kinda long - 32, 35, maybe 40 characters - but the compiler no longer complains so I use it.

      Delete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Quick Guide to User-Defined Types in Oracle PL/SQL

A Twitter follower recently asked for more information on user-defined types in the PL/SQL language, and I figured the best way to answer is to offer up this blog post. PL/SQL is a strongly-typed language . Before you can work with a variable or constant, it must be declared with a type (yes, PL/SQL also supports lots of implicit conversions from one type to another, but still, everything must be declared with a type). PL/SQL offers a wide array of pre-defined data types , both in the language natively (such as VARCHAR2, PLS_INTEGER, BOOLEAN, etc.) and in a variety of supplied packages (e.g., the NUMBER_TABLE collection type in the DBMS_SQL package). Data types in PL/SQL can be scalars, such as strings and numbers, or composite (consisting of one or more scalars), such as record types, collection types and object types. You can't really declare your own "user-defined" scalars, though you can define subtypes  from those scalars, which can be very helpful from the p...
24 comments
Read more

Three tips for getting started right with Oracle Database development

By "Oracle Database development", I mean, more or less, writing SQL and PL/SQL. I assume in this post that you have access to Oracle Database (which you can get via Cloud services, Docker , GitHub and OTN ). A. Use a powerful IDE, designed with database programming in mind. There are lots of editors out there, and many IDEs that work with Oracle Database. Sure, you could use Notepad, but OMG the productivity loss. You could also use a popular editor like Sublime, and then it get it working with Oracle. I suggest, however, that you  download  and install Oracle's own own, free, powerful IDE: SQL Developer . If you like to complement your graphical IDE with a command line tool (or OMG if you actually prefer  a command line tool to a graphical interface), you should also check out the relatively new and generating-lots-of-excitement SQLcl . B. Enable compile-time warnings and PL/Scope. The database has tons of useful functionality burned right into it, ready for...
8 comments
Read more

The future of Oracle PL/SQL: some thoughts on Sten Vesterli's thoughts

Sten Vesterli published a very thought-provoking post on his blog: Please stop reading this post, and read that one. When you are done, come on back here for my thoughts on Sten's thoughts. OK. You read it. Here we go. First, thanks, Sten, for being such an interesting, wise, sometimes provocative voice in our community. Next, Sten writes: Now, on the one hand, I certainly agree that the vast majority of young developers are currently caught up in the modern version of a Gold Rush, which is: "Build an app using JavaScript, pay no attention to that database behind the curtain." But I can assure you that I still do meet young PL/SQL programmers, regularly, when I am at conferences and doing onsite presentations at companies. So, young person who writes PL/SQL: do not be afraid! You are not alone! And you are super-smart to have made the choice you did. :-) Next, Sten offers this advice to managers: I agree that PL/SQL is a "spec...
46 comments
Read more