2
Basic Elements of Oracle SQL

This chapter contains reference information on the basic elements of Oracle SQL. These elements are the simplest building blocks of SQL statements. Therefore, before using the statements described in Chapter 9 through Chapter 18, you should familiarize yourself with the concepts covered in this chapter, as well as in Chapter 3, "Operators", Chapter 4, "Expressions", Chapter 6, "Functions", and Chapter 8, "SQL Queries and Subqueries".

This chapter contains these sections:

• Datatypes
• Literals
• Format Models
• Nulls
• Pseudocolumns
• Comments
• Database Objects
• Schema Object Names and Qualifiers
• Syntax for Schema Objects and Parts in SQL Statements