You can use Oracle SQL Developer to connect, run, and debug PL/SQL. It can run on at least three different operating systems. This tutorial exposes you to this useful interface and shows you some basic tasks that gets you started with this tool. With Oracle 10 XE and this tool, you will have expanded your skill set.

Downloading and installing the Oracle SQL Developer

This version 1.1 December release can be downloaded from the Oracle site after accepting the license agreement. This 63MB down load will install a zip folder which you may place in any directory. From the unzipped contents, double click on the SQLDeveloper.exe.

The User Interface

On a Windows machine you may get a security warning which you may safely override and click on Run. This opens up the splash window shown in the next picture followed by the Oracle SQL Developer interface shown in the picture that follows.

In this highly reduced image you may not be able to discern the various details. It has a main menu at the very top where you can access File, Edit, View, Navigate, Run, Debug, Source, Tools and Help menus. Immediately below the main menu on the left you have a tabbed window with two tabs, Connections and Reports. This will be the item you have to contend with since most things start only after establishing a connection. The connection brings with it the various related objects in the databases. The next picture shows the drop-down of the View main menu, where you can see other details such as links to the debugger, reports, connections and snippets.

Snippets are often-used SQL statements or clauses that you may want to insert. You may also save your snippets by clicking on the bright green plus sign in the window shown, which opens up the superposed Save Snippet  window.

In the Run menu item you can run files as well as look at the Execution Profile. The debug menu item has all the necessary hooks to toggling break points: step into, step over, step out and step to End of methods, etc., including garbage collection and clean up as shown in the next picture. Tools give access to External Tools that can be launched, Exports both DDL and data, schema diff, etc. Help gives you both full text search and indexed search.