Procedural language (PL) is an extension to SQL. PL incorporates characteristics of programming languages based on SQL statements, organizes data operations and query statements in PL code, and implements complex features by using logic judgment and loops.
You can use PL to program a variety of programs with advanced features and encapsulate business logic in a database. This ensures better abstraction and higher security, reduces network interactions, and accelerates calls, thereby improving performance.
Benefits of PL:
High performance
When you use PL for database communication, all processing logic is located on the database server, and only the required results are returned to the client. This reduces data exchanges between the application server and the database server, saving network resources and reducing processing time.
PL objects are precompiled and then stored in the database. The optimizer optimizes PL better and executes PL more efficiently than common SQL.
Easy development
Many characteristics of PL help reduce the design and troubleshooting work for developers. They can use OceanBase Developer Center (ODC) of OceanBase Database for efficient development.
For more information, see the ODC documentation on the official website of OceanBase Database.
Portability
PL is a portable standard language for database developers. Therefore, PL applications can run in any OceanBase database.
Easy Management
PL objects are stored in a database. When you modify applications or iterate the versions, you need to modify only the PL objects in the database. The modification takes effect on all applications immediately. This ensures that code iteration is consistent for all clients.