Re: Please Help: WOW question

Carlos Augusto Leite Netto <cnetto_at_cps.softex.br> wrote:
>Darryl Smith <dsmith_at_continental.com> wrote:
>>>It says that to invoke this procedure, the URL would be:
>>> http://your.host.name/cgi-bin/wow/showemp?name=SCOTT.
>>
>>The URL actually points to a unix script named wow with the parameter:
>> showemp?name=SCOTT
>
>It's important to notice that if you're using the Oracle Web Server,
>you'll not need the wow. This Web Server will access Oracle Server
>directly.

both statements are a bit misleading, i think.

in WOW, wow is a shell script as Mr Smith says. However, it just sets env and then passes the parameter to wowstub, an OCI program that does the real work of communicating with the Oracle Server.

In WebServer, the Oracle Web Agent (owa) is an upgrade/replacement for wowstub and functions very much like wowstub. Modulo differences in the supporting pl/sql packages (htp, etc), html and programs can be converted just by replacing "wow" with "owa"

The main advantages of WebServer over WOW, imo, are:

1. largely preconfigured "package" of 1) Oracle Server, 2) Http server, and 3) WWW agent (OWA) ie user doesnt have to know how to compile/port C code, etc. and WWW admin skills needed are reduced.
2. significantly improved pl/sql support packages (not just trivial things like adding support for html table formatting tags, but rather high level lib support so one can pass an arbitrary Oracle table or view to a function which will return a nicely formatted html table (or pre format if browser doesnt support tables).. there's some very nice dynamic-sql programming behind this..source included). one can, in fact, use these packages with wow without too much trouble but there's not a good reason to do so.
3. unlike wowstub, the Oracle Web Agent supports pl/sql table arrays so one can handle multiple values (e.g. in select lists).
4. unlike WOW, WebServer is an officially supported Oracle product which Oracle is actively developing and integrating with other Oracle tools.

in both WOW and WebServer, the crucial component is the little gateway (whether OWA or wowstub) whose sole function is to enable one to use PL/SQL as one's primary CGI programming language for database work (and, of course, one can still use Perl, Java, etc. if they're more appropriate for a given task).

   http://dozer.us.oracle.com:8080/ has more info (both directly and via pointers to     various sites using WebServer) and an attractive demo.

     thomas

>
>
>Regards,
>
>Carlos Netto
>cnetto_at_cps.softex.br
>Software Design - Oracle Consultants
>
 

-- 
Thomas Dunbar    540 231-3938    http://gserver.grads.vt.edu/