The following features are new in this release:

• Support for command history

  SQL*Plus now supports command history. The command history feature enables users to run, edit, or delete previously used SQL*Plus, SQL, or PL/SQL commands from the history list in the current session.

  See HISTORY

  See SET HIST[ORY] {ON | OFF | n}

  See SHOW HISTORY

• Support for long identifiers

  SQL*Plus now supports object lengths of 128 bytes. In previous releases, the object length limit was 30 bytes.

• Commands to improve performance

  SQL*Plus has new commands that improve performance in certain cases. The new commands enable users to control row and LOB prefetching, as well as statement caching.

  See SET LOBPREFETCH {0 | n}

  See SET ROWPREFETCH {1 | n}

  See SET STATEMENTC[ACHE] {0 | n}

• New Administrative Privilege

  The SQLPLUS and CONNECT commands now support the new user privilege SYSRAC as well as the existing SYSBACKUP |SYSDG | SYSKM |SYSASM |SYSDBA |SYSOPER privileges.

  See SQLPLUS Program Syntax

  See CONNECT

  See Administrative User Accounts

• Support for input binding by using the VARIABLE command. The VARIABLE command now supports input binding which can be used in SQL and PL/SQL statements.

• Support for CSV format data. The SET MARKUP command now has a CSV option to output data in CSV format.

• The SET FEEDBACK command has an ONLY option to display the number of rows selected. No data is displayed.

• SQL*Plus command-line option –AC sets the Application Continuity flag for the session. For more information about Application Continuity, see the Oracle Call Interface Programmer's Guide.

• SQL*Plus command-line option –F[ast] changes the values of the following default settings:

  • ARRAYSIZE = 100

  • LOBPREFETCH = 16384

  • PAGESIZE = 50000

  • ROWPREFETCH = 2

  • STATEMENTCACHE = 20

  These settings improve general performance.

Some features previously described in this document are desupported in Oracle Database 12c Release 2 (12.2). See Oracle Database Upgrade Guide for a list of desupported features.