Database Reference
In-Depth Information
CHAPTER 22
■ ■ ■
Perl DBI and DBD::Oracle
P
erl is a general-purpose, interpreted programming language that supports access to many
commonly used database systems. The documentation does not mention the fact that each
Oracle10
g
and Oracle11
g
ORACLE_HOME
contains a Perl installation, which includes the Perl
modules DBI and DBD::Oracle for access to an ORACLE DBMS instance. Hence there is no
need to install Perl, DBI, and DBD::Oracle,
1
which requires a C compiler and a scarce resource
called time. Perl and the DBI may be used to write your own monitoring and benchmarking
tools, to extract data (including LOBs) to flat file for long term archival, and to insert or update
LOBs from operating system files. Furthermore, Perl DBI is an excellent prototyping tool. The
Perl subdirectory plus several directories within
ORACLE_HOME
can be copied to create a small
footprint Perl DBI Oracle client for machines that do not require a full RDBMS server installation.
Circumnavigating Perl DBI Pitfalls
Except pointing out that Perl DBI is sitting in each Oracle10
g
ORACLE_HOME
ready for use and
how to use it, what benefit could I possibly provide in this chapter? In my experience, users
of the Perl DBI struggle with the many ways of connecting to an ORACLE instance and how to
implement them in Perl DBI scripts, since the Perl DBI and DBD::Oracle documentation at the
details.
The goal of this chapter is to provide you with a comprehensive source of Perl programming in
an ORACLE environment. The following ORACLE-specific material is addressed:
•
Named bind variables
Connecting via the TCP/IP, bequeath, and IPC protocols
Connecting with
SYSDBA
and
SYSOPER
privileges
Using connect strings with and without Net service names
Basically any book should be able to speak for itself. However, including in-depth coverage of
Perl, the DBI, and DBD::Oracle would be off-topic for this topic. Not to mention that it would
not fit the page count. By addressing the ORACLE-specific issues of connecting in great detail
and providing an example Perl script that does
SELECT
,
INSERT
, calls PL/SQL, and includes
1.
The Tk package, which is needed to build graphical user interfaces with Perl, is not included.
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