Why should you care?

OracleCore engineers hit alter session while building and running enterprise databases.

See it live — copy this example

Run these statements in SQL Developer or SQL*Plus against your lab PDB. Prefer a practice user — not SYS — for application SQL.

-- ALTER SESSION
SELECT USER, SYSDATE FROM dual;

What happened?

• dual returns one row so you can select expressions like USER and SYSDATE.
• Follow the steps below — typing the code yourself is the fastest way to learn.

Practice next

1. Connect in SQL Developer.
2. Run the dual query.
3. Note the user and date.
4. Change one literal in the example and re-run.
5. Write a second example from memory without looking.

Remember

You can explain ALTER SESSION in plain English. You ran at least one related command or query. You know one real system where it matters.

ALTER SESSION

Team discusses alter session during design review.

Outcome: You can define it clearly with an example.