Preface

Oracle Database Application Develope r's Guide - Expression Filter provides usage and reference information about Expression Filter, a feature of Oracle Database tha t stores, indexes, and evaluates conditional expressions in relational tables.

Audience

Application developers and DBAs can save time and labor by using Oracle Expr ession Filter to store and evaluate large sets of conditional expressions in the database. Conditional expressions can describe busin ess rules and interests in expected data for applications involving personalized information distribution, demand analysis, and task assignment.

Documentation Accessibility

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Accessibility of Code Examples in Documentation< /font>

JAWS, a Windows screen reader, may not always correctly read the code examples in this document. The conventions for w riting code require that closing braces should appear on an otherwise empty line; however, JAWS may not always read a line of text th at consists solely of a bracket or brace.

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Conventions

This section describes the conventions used in the text and code examples of thi s document. The following table describes those conventions and provides examples of their use.

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Convention	Meaning	Example
[ ]	Brackets enclo se one or more optional items. Do not enter the brackets.	`DECIMAL (`< code>digits `[ ,` `precision` `])`
{ }	Braces enclose two or more items, on e of which is required. Do not enter the braces.	`{ENABLE \| DISABLE}`
\|	A vertical bar represents a choice of two or more options within brackets or braces. Enter one of the options. Do not enter t he vertical bar.	`{ENABLE \| DISABLE}` `[COMPRESS \| NOCOMPRESS]`
`...`	Horizontal ellipsis points indicate either: That we have omitted parts of the code that are not directly related to the example That you can repeat a portion of the code	`CREATE TABLE ... AS` `subquery``;`< /p> `SELECT` `col1``,` `col2``, ... ,` `coln` `FROM employees;`
. . .	Vertical ellipsis points indicate that we have omitted several lin es of code not directly related to the example.
Bold	Bold typeface indicates terms that are defined in the text or terms that appear in a glossary, or both.	When you specify this clause, you create an index-organized table.
`UPPERCASE monospace (fixed-width font)`	Uppercase monospace typeface indicates elements supplied by the system.	You can back up the database by using the `BACKUP` command. Query the `TABLE_NAME` column in the < code>USER_TABLES data dictionary view. Use the `DBMS_STATS`.`GENERATE_STATS` procedure.
`lowercase monospace (fixed-width font)`	Lowercase monospace typeface indicates executables, filenames, directory names, an d sample user-supplied elements.	Enter `sqlplus` to open SQL*Plus. Bac k up the datafiles and control files in the `/disk1/oracle/dbs` directory. The `department_id`, `de partment_name`, and `location_id` columns are in the `hr.departments` table.
`lowercase monospace (fixed-width font) italic`	Lowercase monospace italic font represents placeholders or variables.	You can specify the `parallel_clause`. Run `U``old_re lease``.SQL` where `old_release` refers to the release you installed prior to upgrading.