Oracle FAQ Your Portal to the Oracle Knowledge Grid
HOME | ASK QUESTION | ADD INFO | SEARCH | E-MAIL US
 

Home -> Community -> Mailing Lists -> Oracle-L -> Re: a couple of questions

Re: a couple of questions

From: <Peter.McLarty_at_mincom.com>
Date: Wed, 17 Jul 2002 14:39:01 -0800
Message-ID: <F001.0049AD91.20020717143901@fatcity.com>


Sheesh Has Oracle employed some MS developers, sure sounds like one of there brain dead ideas :-)

Cheers

--
=================================================
Peter McLarty               E-mail: Peter.Mclarty_at_mincom.com
Technical Consultant        WWW: http://www.mincom.com
APAC Technical Services     Phone: +61 (0)7 3303 3461
Brisbane,  Australia        Mobile: +61 (0)402 094 238
                            Facsimile: +61 (0)7 3303 3048
=================================================
A great pleasure in life is doing what people say you cannot do.

    - Walter Bagehot (1826-1877 British Economist)
=================================================
Mincom "The People, The Experience, The Vision"

=================================================

This transmission is for the intended addressee only and is confidential 
information. If you have received this transmission in error, please 
delete it and notify the sender. The contents of this e-mail are the 
opinion of the writer only and are not endorsed by the Mincom Group of 
companies unless expressly stated otherwise. 






Jared.Still_at_radisys.com
Sent by: root_at_fatcity.com
17-07-2002 03:14 PM
Please respond to ORACLE-L

 
        To:     Multiple recipients of list ORACLE-L <ORACLE-L_at_fatcity.com>
        cc: 
        Fax to: 
        Subject:        Re: a couple of questions



> Not so with what you're describing. Sounds like a feature which is ripe
for
> all kinds of abuse. I can just imagine entire tables populated with
columns
> of type VARIANT by some designer touting "flexibility" as a mantra.
I can see it now: one table in a database two columns, one for primary key, the other for data ( of type ANY of course ) all on one server all disk striped a SAME structure as a series of RAID 5 arrays. No DBA? Hell, you don't even need a duhveloper, just use the ODBC interface in MS Excel. Jared "Tim Gorman" <Tim_at_SageLogix.com> Sent by: root_at_fatcity.com 07/17/2002 12:35 PM Please respond to ORACLE-L To: Multiple recipients of list ORACLE-L <ORACLE-L_at_fatcity.com> cc: Subject: Re: a couple of questions Rachel, This "variant" datatype sounds a lot like the "union" data structure from "C" language, which closely resembled a "struct" (i.e. record) but all of the "fields" overlap the same memory address. In other words, it was a mechanism for type re-casting. In the grand tradition of robust programming languages, there are about a dozen and a half ways to do this in "C", and the "union" structure is one of the less popular. Luckily, it is difficult to use for any other purpose... Not so with what you're describing. Sounds like a feature which is ripe for all kinds of abuse. I can just imagine entire tables populated with columns of type VARIANT by some designer touting "flexibility" as a mantra. Fortunately, Oracle developers can use the RAW datatype in the same fashion, and it is interesting to note (but perhaps not coincidental) that most "C" programmers tend to favor a similar mechanism (i.e. "void" pointers) for type re-casting too. In other words, be assured that VARIANT is not the only way to get the job done, and might prove unpopular anyway... Just my $0.02... -Tim ----- Original Message ----- To: "Multiple recipients of list ORACLE-L" <ORACLE-L_at_fatcity.com> Sent: Wednesday, July 17, 2002 11:08 AM
> Okay, I'm working on what feels like 30 new projects all at once and I
> WILL be RTFM'ing as soon as I can get more than 5 minutes out of
> meetings but....
> >
> first: has anyone heard of any problems with 64-bit Oracle on a
> Solaris 64-bit OS?
>
> second (and this one confuses me a bit)... I've been asked if Oracle9i
> supports a "variant" datatype -- they are not familiar with oracle but
> are familiar with SQL Server and say that there is a datatype called
> "variant" there where you can basically overload the column with
> whatever datatype you want (string, number, date) and the database
> knows what type of data it is storing within the column. They referred
> me to C++ and Java, neither of which I know.
>
> Can anyone point in the right direction to start researching this?
>
> Thanks!
>
> Rachel
> >
> __________________________________________________
> Do You Yahoo!?
> Yahoo! Autos - Get free new car price quotes
> http://autos.yahoo.com
> --
> Please see the official ORACLE-L FAQ: http://www.orafaq.com
> --
> Author: Rachel Carmichael
> INET: wisernet100_at_yahoo.com
>
> Fat City Network Services -- (858) 538-5051 FAX: (858) 538-5051
> San Diego, California -- Public Internet access / Mailing Lists
> --------------------------------------------------------------------
> To REMOVE yourself from this mailing list, send an E-Mail message
> to: ListGuru_at_fatcity.com (note EXACT spelling of 'ListGuru') and in
> the message BODY, include a line containing: UNSUB ORACLE-L
> (or the name of mailing list you want to be removed from). You may
> also send the HELP command for other information (like subscribing).
-- Please see the official ORACLE-L FAQ: http://www.orafaq.com -- Author: Tim Gorman INET: Tim_at_SageLogix.com Fat City Network Services -- (858) 538-5051 FAX: (858) 538-5051 San Diego, California -- Public Internet access / Mailing Lists -------------------------------------------------------------------- To REMOVE yourself from this mailing list, send an E-Mail message to: ListGuru_at_fatcity.com (note EXACT spelling of 'ListGuru') and in the message BODY, include a line containing: UNSUB ORACLE-L (or the name of mailing list you want to be removed from). You may also send the HELP command for other information (like subscribing). -- Please see the official ORACLE-L FAQ: http://www.orafaq.com -- Author: INET: Jared.Still_at_radisys.com Fat City Network Services -- (858) 538-5051 FAX: (858) 538-5051 San Diego, California -- Public Internet access / Mailing Lists -------------------------------------------------------------------- To REMOVE yourself from this mailing list, send an E-Mail message to: ListGuru_at_fatcity.com (note EXACT spelling of 'ListGuru') and in the message BODY, include a line containing: UNSUB ORACLE-L (or the name of mailing list you want to be removed from). You may also send the HELP command for other information (like subscribing). -- Please see the official ORACLE-L FAQ: http://www.orafaq.com -- Author: INET: Peter.McLarty_at_mincom.com Fat City Network Services -- (858) 538-5051 FAX: (858) 538-5051 San Diego, California -- Public Internet access / Mailing Lists -------------------------------------------------------------------- To REMOVE yourself from this mailing list, send an E-Mail message to: ListGuru_at_fatcity.com (note EXACT spelling of 'ListGuru') and in the message BODY, include a line containing: UNSUB ORACLE-L (or the name of mailing list you want to be removed from). You may also send the HELP command for other information (like subscribing).
Received on Wed Jul 17 2002 - 17:39:01 CDT

Original text of this message

HOME | ASK QUESTION | ADD INFO | SEARCH | E-MAIL US