Re: Perl DBI?

Roger Tomas wrote:
>
> Am new to Oracle. Will be needing to access Oracle DB from
> Perl. Have seen references to Perl DBI. Can someone give
> me a real brief description of Perl DBI? Also, are there any
> other interfaces worth considering?
>
> TIA!
>
> Roger Tomas
> AG Communication Systems

DBI

	Generic database interface module
	Required for each DBD
DBD::Oracle
DBD::DB2
DBD::Informix
DBD::Express
DBD::XBase
DBD::Solid
DBD::Postgres
DBD::CSV

	etc, etc, etc.
	Install as many as you need, the one perl script can
	open one or more connections to each driver

You get cursors, multiple logins, interface to blobs, procedures. All the stuff you normally need Pro*C for. Consider using the Tk GUI toolset for portable screen based scripts.

For a no-brainer howto, open the DBD-Oracle archive, go into the oraperl.ex directory, and check out the sql script. It uses the "old" oraperl syntax, but that's ok - you'll still get most of what you want done.

(For non-perlers, it implements something like SQL*Plus for a single statement in about 70 lines of code, most of which are blank or comments).

The other interface worth considering is not perl, but TCL. oratclsh (and wish with Oracle calls) has some nice demos that give you something like SQL*Forms.

All the above solutions cost $0.

I know of no DB vendor supporting these tools because (1) It allows rapid migration from engine to engine (2) You don't need proprietary program development tools

Futher questions should be directed to comp.lang.perl.modules and comp.lang.perl.tk (the latter for GUI stuff).

-- 
David T. Bath (from home) david.bath_at_nre.vic.gov.au
Phone: +613 9500 0894    Mobile: 015 824 171 (not always on)
Office: Global Consulting Ph:+613 9347 7511    Fax:+613 9347 0182
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