Re: HTML and Oracle Database

John Leggitt wrote in message ...
<snip>
>easily; however, we want to set up a web interface now to the current
>database. We have played with using Active X with an ODBC connection.
 That
>works fine with Internet Explorer but not with Netscape and it means doing
>all development in VB.

Delphi and other development languages also support generating ActiveX apps, but IMO ActiveX is crap. The only "additional" functionality (if you can call it that) is that a) the app sits on the web server which ensures everyone is using the latest version (yeah right, even if takes a few minutes to download the damn thing each time), b) it uses Internet Explorer as its window for display (absolute gatish brilliance, don't you think?).

To get the ActiveX app to work on the client, -all- the relevant drivers and stuff needs to be installed on the client. So if the client does not have SQL*Net and Oracle ODBC installed, trying to run this wonderful ActiveX app helps jack shit.

Sorry, but I tend to get a bit carried away when someone mentions the abolute crap Microsoft markets as the "counter" to Java. I fail to see any -real- advantage running ActiveX applications.

>Any ideas on how we might get started with HTML accessing data in the
>database? Sample code, web sites would be much appreciated?

There are a couple of standard and not so standward ways to integrate a Web Server with a database. Here's a quick and dirty list of options:

1. Java The Java application work similar to an ActiveX application in that its resides on the web server and runs using the web browser's window as display. But it's here that all similarity stops. Java runs in a sandbox, thus no direct access to the local machines hardware, files and operating system (unlike an ActiveX app that runs as a Window app without -any- security being employed - and don't tell me a digital certificate is security!). Java runs in a Java Virtual Machine. This means that the Java application can run on any platform that supports a browser containing a Java VM.

There are IDE (interactive development environments) from Sun, Borland, Microsoft etc. that utilises RAD (rapid application development) for creating Java applications.

2. CGI (Common Gateway Interface)
A CGI program is a console/character application that intergrates other services with a the web server. Simple example. You install SQL*Net on the web server, write a Delphi console app that accesses Oracle and returns a specific employee's data as a web page. You use the CGI as part of a HTML FORM to submit data (i.e. the employee's surname) - the web server sets up the NT command shell environment with a bunch of variables, and runs the Delphi CGI. The CGI reads the environment variables, determines what to do, access Oracle and writes a HTML page as output to STDOUT. The web server reads teh STDOUT and returns this dynamically created page to the browser.

Oracle also supports CGIs in PL/SQL. You can install a PL/SQL cartridge (basically a CGI) in a web server and then run PL/SQL procedures as CGIs. These stored proc's make use of the Oracle HTML package to dynamically create web pages.

3. NSAPI or ISAPI (proprietary CGI type interfaces) Web servers like Netscape and Internet Server support a faster and "better" CGI type interface. Only problem is that this type of API for CGI development is proprietary. However, some development tools (like Delphi for example) allow you to transperantly develop a single program that can be used as either NSAPI or ISAPI.

4. Active Server Pages
Internet Server (from Microsoft) supports a server scripting language (VB script) that can be embedded into a web page. The server reads, interprets and run the VB script in the Active Server Page, collate the results into the page and then present the page to the browser. Works ok, but you will need ODBC for Oracle and ASP is proprietary.

regards,
Billy Received on Sun Mar 29 1998 - 00:00:00 CST