There is ample evidence from community discussion lists that many developers really struggle when it comes to actually applying PL/SQL stored procedures to their real world problems. There are several books on the market that teach the PL/SQL language and will dedicate a few chapters to the fundamental of stored procedures. However, Mastering Oracle PL/SQL will help take them to the next level. It shows clearly the sort of problems that can (and should) be solved using stored procedures, and how to code them effectively. It focuses exclusively on real practical uses of PL/SQL in the database - as a highly efficient data handling language, as a database administration tool, a web development language, a security mechanism and more. It also shows how to exploit the versatile functionality of Java stored procedures, right in the database, to extend the capabilities of PL/SQL.