Question

I’m not a DBA, but I have some basic understanding about how SQL Server is supposed to work. I’m having trouble translating this knowledge into getting a working Oracle XE database, so my girlfriend can play around with her bookstore coursework.

So, I installed Oracle XE database, and downloaded Oracle SQL Developer. I supplied a password, during installation, and using this password in conjunction with sys login in sysdba-mode, I’m able to connect and browse the database, which I can only assume is the master database, since there are numerous tables that have nothing to do with future bookstores.

I want to create a new – empty database, and I don’t much care about how it’s configured. It’s a playpen for coursework. So I happily stab with:

create database bookstore

and recieve an error to the effect of:

ORA-01100: database already mounted

I just want to create a new database, so that if something goes wrong i can do a drop database bookstore instead of manually deleting tables and such. In SQL Server Management Studio you execute these statements on the master database, and then connect to the specific database you want to play with.

Answer 1

A SQL Server database is roughly equivalent to a schema in Oracle. And a schema in Oracle is a collection of objects owned by a particular user.

Given that, it appears that you want to do something like

Create a user

CREATE USER bookstore IDENTIFIED BY bookstore;

Grant privileges to the user

GRANT CREATE SESSION TO bookstore;
GRANT UNLIMITED TABLESPACE TO bookstore;
GRANT CREATE TABLE TO bookstore;
GRANT CREATE VIEW TO bookstore;
GRANT CREATE TYPE TO bookstore;
GRANT CREATE SYNONYM TO bookstore;
GRANT CREATE PROCEDURE TO bookstore;
GRANT CREATE SEQUENCE TO bookstore;
GRANT CREATE MATERIALIZED VIEW TO bookstore;

Now, you should be able to connect to the bookstore schema in the XE database and create whatever tables, views, triggers, etc. you want.