PL/SQL Character Set
A PL/SQL program consists of a sequence of statements, each PL/SQL statments are written using a specific set of characters.These characters are shown below
| Type | Characters |
| Letters | a-z,A-Z, |
| Digits | 0..9 |
| Symbols | ~ ! @ # $ % & amp; * ( ) _ – + = | [ ] { } : ; ” ‘ < > , . ? / |
| Whitespace | Tab, Space, Carriage return |
PL/SQL keywords are not case-sensitive, so lower-case letters are equivalent to corresponding upper-case letters.
For eg.emp_sal,EMP_SAL are treated as same.but they are treated diffrently in C,C++ etc
except within string and character literals.
Special Symbols
| Symbol | Description |
| ; | statement terminator |
| % | Attribute indicator(cursor attributes etc) |
| _ | Single-byte wildcard symbol |
| : | Host variable indicator |
| ** | Double asterisk(exponentiation operator) |
| < > and != | “Not equals” |
| || | Double vertical bar: concatenation operator |
| << and >> | Label delimiters |
| <= and >= | Relational operators |
| := | Assignment operator |
| => | Association operator for positional notation |
| – | Double dash: single-line comment indicator |
| /* and */ | Beginning and ending multiline comment block delimiters |