Preface

This manual describes using the Oracle Data Mining Java and PL/SQL Application Programming Interfaces (APIs) to perform data mining tasks for business applications, bioinformatics, and text mining.

Intended Audience

This manual is intended for anyone planning to write programs using the Oracle Data Mining Java or PL/SQL interface.

Familiarity with Java or PL/SQL is assumed, as well as familiarity with databases and data mining.

Users of the Oracle Data Mining BLAST table functions should be familiar with NCBI BLAST and related concepts.

Structure

This manual is organized as follows:

Where to Find More Information

The documentation set for Oracle Data Mining is part of the Oracle 10g Database Documentation Library. The ODM documentation set consists of the following documents, available online:

Oracle Data Mining Administrator's Guide, Release 10g
Oracle Data Mining Concepts, Release 10g
Oracle Data Mining Application Developer's Guide, Release 10g (this document)

Last-minute information about ODM is provided in the platform-specific README file.

For detailed information about the Java API, see the ODM Javadoc in the directory $ORACLE_HOME/dm/doc/jdoc (UNIX) or %ORACLE_HOME%\dm\doc\jdoc (Windows) on any system where ODM is installed.

For detailed information about the PL/SQL interface, see the Supplied PL/SQL Packages and Types Reference.

For information about the data mining process in general, independent of both industry and tool, a good source is the CRISP-DM project (Cross-Industry Standard Process for Data Mining) (http://www.crisp-dm.org/).

Related Manuals

For more information about the database underlying Oracle Data Mining, see:

Oracle Administrator's Guide, Release 10g
Oracle Database 10g Installation Guide for your platform.

For information about developing applications to interact with the Oracle Database, see

Oracle Application Developer's Guide -- Fundamentals, Release 10g

For information about upgrading from Oracle Data Mining release 9.0.1 or release 9.2.0, see

Oracle Database Upgrade Guide, Release 10g
Oracle Data Mining Administrator's Guide, Release 10g

For information about installing Oracle Data Mining, see

Oracle Installation Guide, Release 10g
Oracle Data Mining Administrator's Guide, Release 10g

Conventions

In this manual, Windows refers to the Windows 95, Windows 98, Windows NT, Windows 2000, and Windows XP operating systems.

The SQL interface to Oracle is referred to as SQL. This interface is the Oracle implementation of the SQL standard ANSI X3.135-1992, ISO 9075:1992, commonly referred to as the ANSI/ISO SQL standard or SQL92.

In examples, an implied carriage return occurs at the end of each line, unless otherwise noted. You must press the Return key at the end of a line of input.

The following conventions are also followed in this manual:

Convention	Meaning
. . .	Vertical ellipsis points in an example mean that information not directly related to the example has been omitted.
. . .	Horizontal ellipsis points in statements or commands mean that parts of the statement or command not directly related to the example have been omitted
boldface	Boldface type in text indicates the name of a class or method.
italic text	Italic type in text indicates a term defined in the text, the glossary, or in both locations.
`typewriter`	In interactive examples, user input is indicated by bold typewriter font, and system output by plain typewriter font.
typewriter	Terms in italic typewriter font represent placeholders or variables.
< >	Angle brackets enclose user-supplied names.
[ ]	Brackets enclose optional clauses from which you can choose one or none

Documentation Accessibility

Our goal is to make Oracle products, services, and supporting documentation accessible, with good usability, to the disabled community. To that end, our documentation includes features that make information available to users of assistive technology. This documentation is available in HTML format, and contains markup to facilitate access by the disabled community. Standards will continue to evolve over time, and Oracle Corporation is actively engaged with other market-leading technology vendors to address technical obstacles so that our documentation can be accessible to all of our customers. For additional information, visit the Oracle Accessibility Program Web site at http://www.oracle.com/accessibility/.

Accessibility of Code Examples in Documentation

JAWS, a Windows screen reader, may not always correctly read the code examples in this document. The conventions for writing code require that closing braces should appear on an otherwise empty line; however, JAWS may not always read a line of text that consists solely of a bracket or brace.