Why doesn't ORACLE allow consecutive newline characters in commands?

Question

I write:

CREATE TABLE Person ( 
name CHAR(10),

ssn INTEGER);

and save it to a file "a.sql".

If I then run it by typing &quo

Answer 1

By default, SQLPlus does terminate (but not execute) a statement when a blank line is entered. It has always done this. It probably seemed like a good idea in the days before screen editors and query tools.

You can change that default behaviour with

set SQLBLANKLINES on

In which case you'd have to enter a line with just a full stop to terminate (but not execute) a statement.