The CACHE option means how many sequences will be stored in memory for access by the application objects. The performance is faster. However in case of the database is down the data is memory is lost for the sequence.

The NO CACHE option means values are not stored in memory. So there might be some performance issue. 

A sequence is a database object that is used to generate sequential number.

CREATE SEQUENCE seqname [increment] [minimum value][maximum value][start][cache][cycle]               Nextval and currval lets us get the next value and current value from the sequence.

Named PL/SQL blocks of code which can be invoked using parameters are called PL/SQL sub programs.

Advantages of PL/SQL subprograms are

- The application makes a single call to the database to run a block of statements which improves performance against running SQL multiple times. This will reduce the number of calls between the database and the application.

- PL/SQL is secure since the code resides inside the database thus hiding internal database details from the application. The application will only make a call to the PL/SQL sub program

- PL/SQL and SQL go hand in hand so there would be no need of any translation required between PL/SQL and SQL.

1)Divide by zero        – This is raised when any number is attempted to divide by zero.

2)TOO MANY ROWS   - A SELECT INTO statement returns more than one row.

3)CASE_NOT_FOUND - No choice in the WHEN clause of a case statement is selected.

4)LOGIN_DENIED      - An attempt to login with an invalid username or password.

5)PROGRAM_ERROR  - An internal PL/SQL problem.

- %FOUND

 This is a Boolean variable which evaluates to TRUE if the last row is successfully fetched.

- %NOTFOUND

 This is a Boolean variable which evaluates to TRUE if the last row is not successfully fetched. This means there are no more rows to fetch.

- %ROWCOUNT

 Returns the number of rows fetched by the cursor.

- %ISOPEN

If the cursor is open, it evaluates to TRUE else FALSE.

Cursors help you manipulate the information retrieved by select statements. This can be done by assigning a name to the cursor.

Example:

CURSOR emp_cur 

IS 

SELECT emp_number from employee_tbl where employee_name = name_in;

Types of Cursors:

Implicit cursors- These cursors are not declared by the programmer. They are issued when the SQL statement is executed. The open, close and fetching is done by itself.

Example:

UPDATE employee SET salary = salary * 2.1;

Here, an implicit cursor is issued to identify the set of rows in the table which would be affected by the update.

Explicit cursors- These cursors are defined by programmer. They are used in queries that return multiple rows.

Example:

CURSOR emp_cur 

IS 

SELECT emp_number from employee_tbl where employee_name = name_in;

EXECUTE IMMEDIATE command can be used to call DDL statements. 

Example:

BEGIN

EXECUTE IMMEDIATE  'TRUNCATE TABLE employee';

END;

One can debug PL/SQL program by printing the output using DBMS_OUTPUT package. Put_line can be used to display a line as shown below:

BEGIN

        dbms_output.put_line(‘Sample line');

END;