Re: Oracle Programming on HPUX

Hi Don,

> Any suggestions for how to go about developing an Oracle application
> on UNIX?

Using Pro*C/C++ is the most common approach used to access ORACLE databases.
This is assuming your project has to use C or C++ programming language. PL/SQL is also very powerful and it serves many purposes.

> The current team is using Rouge Wave to access Oralce but cannot get
> it to work in the UNIX environment (it will work on NT). RougeWave's
> tech support seems terrible and we always have to wait for days for an
> answer.

I have used RougeWaves' implementation of C++ standard library in my previous project, on SunOS using Sun Workshop Compiler. Library was very efficient, even though workshop compiler had frequent new patches.

> I have been looking at Pro*C but it seems to be a real pain. You have
> to run it through a precompiler and then use generated code which
> makes it difficult to set break points.

Pro*C pre-compiler saves you lot of time interfacing with ORACLE database
and some of its features like (host arrays) are very powerful and useful.
I do not see how it makes it difficult to set break points and you should
never have to debug ORACLE libraries, if you ever reach that point it could
be a very silly bug (caused to due to the pre-compiler, like a missing ';')
somewhere.  

> Would you suggest staying with RougeWave? It could be the developers
> more than the product.
> Is Pro*C a good way to go? Maybe it is easier than it seems once you
> get into it.

Yeah, Pro*C would be the way to go, unless you know of a better alternative.
Few of the things which I learnt from my project with regards to Pro*C and
RougeWave Standard C++ Library are:

1. Pro*C/C++ pre-compiler wasn't compliant with new C++ standards and thus, does no recognize header files without a '.h' extension. Way around it is you make a copy of header files, append a .h to them and place them in the include path of your compiler.
2. We had problems with declaration of Pro*C structs and the way #include's work.
3. Something to remember, maximum number of records you can retrieve/insert records using host arrays is UNDEFINED. It varies depending on many factors.

> Is there another method that I should consider?
>
> Can anyone suggest a good IDE? We are currently using Softbench. It
> would be great if there was a product that integrates with Pro*c.
>
> Thanks,
> Don
> chambers_at_inquiregroup.com

Shailender Received on Wed Jun 07 2000 - 00:00:00 CDT