PL/SQL stands for Procedural Language extensions to SQL (Structured Query Language). It was created by Oracle in order to overcome the disadvantages of SQL for easier building and handling of critical applications in a comprehensive manner.
Following are the disadvantages of SQL:
- There is no provision of decision-making, looping, and branching in SQL.
- Since the SQL statements get passed to the Oracle engine all at the same time, the speed of execution decreases due to the nature of increased traffic.
- There is no feature of error checking while manipulating the data.
PL/SQL was introduced to overcome the above disadvantages by retaining the power of SQL and combining it with the procedural statements. It is developed as a block-structured language and the statements of the block are passed to the oracle engine which helps to increase the speed of processing due to the decrease in traffic.