Is there a good alternative to SQL*PLUS for Oracle?

Question

I am not a fan of using SQL*PLUS as an interface to Oracle. I usually use yasql, but it hasn\'t been updated since 2005 and can do with some improvements. A quick Google searc

Answer 1

Emacs can provide so much more powerful text editing features and functionality beyond the default SQL*Plus command-line interface.

Here are a few links on how to use Emacs as a wrapper for SQL*Plus:

• Emacs and Oracle
• EmacsWiki:SqlPlus

Answer 2

If you're the VIM type kind of guy then I'd look into Vorax. It is basically a VIM wrapper around SQL*plus.

Answer 3

open source version of TOAD is TORA: tora.sourceforge.net

Answer 4

I presume that you want a low-overhead method of knocking out queries, but want more functions than SQL*Plus provides? Why not use Oracle's SQL Developer? It's free.

Install, make a new connection to your database, then just start typing a script. Press F5 to run it (or just the part of the script that you've highlighted).

Answer 5

TOAD is pretty expensive, but you can download a 90-day trial from the Quest site to see if it's got the feature set you want (don't be fooled by the "freeware" title - it's only free for 90 days, and then it expires, which definitely makes it shareware):

http://www.toadworld.com/Freeware/ToadforOracleFreeware/tabid/558/Default.aspx

Another options is a tool I've seen on CodeProject:

http://www.codeproject.com/KB/database/OQuery.aspx

It's in .NET, so you'd have to see if it compiled on Mono, but it might be worth a shot. I haven't used either tool (Toad or this one), since I'm a SQL Server guy, but I've heard good things about Toad.

Answer 6

Take a look at gqlplus. It wraps sql*plus on linux and makes it more user-friendly by adding things like command history, table name completion and so on.