In this blog, we’ll discuss the essential Syntax of PL/SQL which may be a block-structured language; this suggests that the PL/SQL programs are divided and written in logical blocks of code. Each block consists of three sub-parts –

S.No	Sections & Description
1	Declarations This section starts with the keyword DECLARE. It is an optional section and defines all variables, cursors, subprograms, and other elements to be utilized in the program.
2	Executable Commands This section is enclosed between the keywords BEGIN and END and it is a compulsory section. It consists of the executable PL/SQL statements of the program. It should have a minimum of one executable line of code, which can be just a NULL command to point that nothing should be executed.
3	Exception Handling This section starts with the keyword EXCEPTION. This optional section contains exception(s) that handle errors within the program.

Every PL/SQL statement ends with a semicolon (;). PL/SQL blocks are often nested within other PL/SQL blocks using BEGIN and END. Following is that the basic structure of a PL/SQL block −

DECLARE 

BEGIN 

EXCEPTION 

END;
The 'Hello World' Example
DECLARE 
message varchar2(20):= 'Hello, World!'; 
BEGIN 
dbms_output.put_line(message); 
END; 
/

The end; line signals the top of the PL/SQL block. To run the code from the SQL instruction , you’ll got to type / at the start of the primary blank line after the last line of the code. When the above code is executed at the SQL prompt, it produces the subsequent result −
Hello World

PL/SQL procedure successfully completed.
The PL/SQL Identifiers
PL/SQL identifiers are constants, variables, exceptions, procedures, cursors, and reserved words. The identifiers contains a letter optionally followed by more letters, numerals, dollar signs, underscores, and number signs and will not exceed 30 characters.
By default, identifiers aren’t case-sensitive. So you’ll use integer or INTEGER to represent a numeric value. you can’t use a reserved keyword as an identifier.
The PL/SQL Delimiters
A delimiter may be a symbol with a special meaning. Following is that the list of delimiters in PL/SQL –

Delimiter	Description
*+, -, , /**	Addition, subtraction/negation, multiplication, division
%	Attribute indicator
‘	Character string delimiter
.	Component selector
(,)	Expression or list delimiter
:	Host variable indicator
,	Item separator
“	Quoted identifier delimiter
=	Relational operator
@	Remote access indicator
;	Statement terminator
:=	Assignment operator
=>	Association operator
\|\|	Concatenation operator
**	Exponentiation operator
<<, >>	Label delimiter (begin and end)
*/, /*	Multi-line comment delimiter (begin and end)
—	Single-line comment indicator
..	Range operator
<, >, <=, >=	Relational operators
<>, ‘=, ~=, ^=	Different versions of NOT EQUAL

The PL/SQL Comments
Program comments are explanatory statements which will be included within the PL/SQL code that you simply write and helps anyone reading its ASCII text file . All programming languages allow some sort of comments.
The PL/SQL supports single-line and multi-line comments. All characters available inside any comment are ignored by the PL/SQL compiler. The PL/SQL single-line comments start with the delimiter — (double hyphen) and multi-line comments are enclosed by /* and */.

DECLARE
-- variable declaration
message varchar2(20):= 'Hello, World!';
BEGIN
/*
* PL/SQL executable statement(s)
*/
dbms_output.put_line(message);
END;
/
When the above code is executed at the SQL prompt, it produces the subsequent result −
Hello World

PL/SQL procedure successfully completed.
PL/SQL Program Units
A PL/SQL unit is anybody of the subsequent −
• PL/SQL block
• Function
• Package
• Package body
• Procedure
• Trigger
• Type
• Type body
Each of those units are going to be discussed within the following chapters.
So, this brings us to the end of blog. This Tecklearn ‘Basic Syntax of PL-SQL’ blog helps you with commonly asked questions if you are looking out for a job in Oracle Pl-SQL. If you wish to learn Oracle PL-SQL and build a career in Database domain, then check out our interactive, Oracle PL-SQL Training, that comes with 24*7 support to guide you throughout your learning period. Please find the link for course details:

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What you will Learn in this Course?

Introduction to Oracle SQL
• Database Models
• RDBMS
• Components of SQL
• DataTypes
• DDL-Create, Alter, Rename, Drop, Truncate
Manipulating Data using SQL
• Constraints –Unique, Not Null, Primary Key, Check Constraint, Foreign Key
• DML Commands-Insert, Update, Delete
• Order by Clause
• Group Functions
• SET Operators- Union All, Union, Intersect, Minus
• TCL Commands-Commit, RollBack, Savepoint
Oracle Views and Synonyms
• Types of Views
• Synonyms
• Types of Synonyms
• Indexes
• Types of Indexes
Using Subqueries to Solve Queries
• Subqueries
• Co-Related Subquery
OLAP Functions
• OLAP Features
• Roll Up
• Model Clause
• Dimension Modelling
Conditional Statement
• Block
• Variable Attributes
• Nested Blocks
• Conditional Control Statements
• Iterative Controls (Loop)
Cursor Management
• Types of Cursor
• Writing Explicit cursors
• Explicit cursor functions
• Advance Explicit cursor
• Cursor with parameters
Exception Handling
• Handling Exception
• Handling Exception with PL/SQL Predefined Exceptions,
• User Defined Exceptions
• Non-Predefined Error
• Function for trapping Exception
• Trapping user-defined Exception
Subprogram, Procedure and passing parameters and Advance Package Concepts and functions
• Important Features of Sub-Programs
• Procedure
• Functions
Trigger Management
• Introduction to Triggers
• Types of Triggers
• Compound Triggers
Oracle Job Scheduling
Large Object Functions
• Large object functions – BFILENAME, EMPTY_BLOB, EMPTY_CLOB etc
Important Features of Oracle
Advance level- Scripting

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