SQLcl

SQLcl caught my attention because it's now supported in Oracle's Developer Cloud Service(See Adding a Build Step that Invokes SQLcl). Investigating further, it appears to address all the shortcomings of SQL*Plus as SQLcl provides in-line editing, statement completion, and command recall for a feature-rich experience, all while also supporting your previously written SQL*Plus scripts.

Getting Started

SQLcl is only included with 12.2 Database Cloud Service instances. Here's how I got it up and running on a 12.1 instance.

• Download SQLcl to your workstation
• SCP the zip to the oracle home directory of your Database Cloud instance
• Extract the archive
• SQLcl requires Java 8, so edit the /home/oracle/.bashrc and add the following 2 lines to the bottom to set the JAVA_HOME, SQLCL_HOME and update the PATH:

	export JAVA_HOME=/u01/app/oracle/product/java/jdk1.8.0_74
	export SQLCL_HOME=/home/oracle/sqlcl
	export PATH=$JAVA_HOME/bin:$SQLCL_HOME/bin:$PATH

Then source your new .bashrc, verify your Java version and test running SQLcl:

[oracle@DevOpsDB ~]$ . .bashrc
[oracle@DevOpsDB ~]$ java -version
java version "1.8.0_74"
Java(TM) SE Runtime Environment (build 1.8.0_74-b02)
Java HotSpot(TM) 64-Bit Server VM (build 25.74-b02, mixed mode)
[oracle@DevOpsDB ~]$ sql

SQLcl: Release 4.2.0 Production on Wed Mar 29 19:02:01 2017

Copyright (c) 1982, 2017, Oracle.  All rights reserved.

Username? (''?)

Some useful commands:

[oracle@DevOpsDB ~]$ sql / as sysdba

SQLcl: Release 17.2.0 Production on Thu Aug 17 12:17:46 2017

Copyright (c) 1982, 2017, Oracle.  All rights reserved.

Connected to an Idle instance, startup command available.

SQL>

[oracle@DevOpsDB ~]$ sql DEVOPS/DEVOPS@PDB1

SQLcl: Release 4.2.0 Production on Fri Apr 28 13:51:39 2017

Copyright (c) 1982, 2017, Oracle.  All rights reserved.

Connected to:
Oracle Database 12c Enterprise Edition Release 12.1.0.2.0 - 64bit Production
With the Partitioning and Real Application Testing options


SQL> 

[oracle@DevOpsDB ~]$ sql sys/{password}@pdb1 as sysdba;

SQLcl: Release 4.2.0 Production on Fri Apr 28 13:58:14 2017

Copyright (c) 1982, 2017, Oracle.  All rights reserved.

Connected to:
Oracle Database 12c Enterprise Edition Release 12.1.0.2.0 - 64bit Production
With the Partitioning and Real Application Testing options


SQL>