Re: Is OCI the best way.....

Hi Chris,

The OCI is a very powerful way to manipulate ORACLE via C/C++ programs - and *very* quick as well, since you are calling the lower API to ORACLE. There is a drawback though - it's complex to write. Unless you are a seasoned C/C++ programmer with good pointer experience, I would recommend caution. I say this because the OCI uses many pointer to pointer types, and in addition you will also need to carefully manage your own memory usage.

If you do decide to use the OCI, use the ORACLE 8 version - it's much better than the ORACLE 7 offering (in my opinion). Note, however, that the ORACLE 7 OCI is still supported, at the moment, as a subset of the ORACLE 8 OCI. Also, get yourself a good C/C++ debugging tool - like Boundschecker (for PC's), or Purify or Insure ++ (for UNIX). If you drop a pointer in the OCI, it can be difficult to find (believe me!).

As for other options - you could use ODBC, but it's alot slower than the OCI, and doesn't have all the functionality (and when I last looked at it, it was a bit buggy - but to be fair that was a little while ago). You could also use PRO*C, but I guess that depends on the type of application you are writing. But for pure speed, power and reliability, you can't beat the OCI. Apart from many features, the bulk fetching capability is magic, and can make programs fly.

Good Luck,

Adrian Nakon,
Senior Technical Consultant,
British Telecom.

ChrisO <chris.osborn_at_engelhard.com> wrote in message news:7rh9eq$fn5$1_at_nnrp1.deja.com...
> Is the Oracle Call Interface (OCI) the best way to access data from a
> program written on a UNIX system. Are there any other options (i.e. in
> windows you can also use ODBC)?
>
>
>
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Received on Mon Sep 13 1999 - 09:36:29 CDT