Re: Rapid development tool for Web based DB application needed

Morning Rick,

Comments inline somewhere :o)

On Thu, 20 Nov 2003 23:53:13 +0100, Rick Denoire wrote:

> How difficult is it to learn the "proprietary" bits to integrate the
> SQL commands into the HTML code?
>
If you can do HTML and PL/SQL you already know how to do it.

> Wait, that is not "rapid" any more. I wouldn't care about the style or
> quality of the PL/SQL code generated, I don't see a performance issue
> here. Seems to be more a matter of taste. By the way, can such PL/SQL
> code be converted back to the original HTML? Or should one keep the
> original versions of the code in order to do further development, bug
> fixing, etc.?
>
Ok what happens is this :

	you write a psp file which is an HTML page with special tags. This
	may be able to be done in Front Page, or use a quality HTML editor
	like Quanta or AceHTML for best results. (Not as quick as FP !)

	You save this file as homepage.psp.

	FTP to the server - if not already there.

	In a user with Oracle_Home etc set and on the PATH, do this :

		loadpsp [-replace] -user <logon> list_of_psp_files

	The <logon> bit is the usual user/pass or user/pass_at_alias.

	The -replace is required when the file or files have been
	loadpsp's previously.

	That's it. Your original HTML files are still where you created them
	and can be CVS'd, the copy on the server is safe (!) but the
	code is in the database user as a procedure which can be edited
	re-copmpiled etc. Best of all, it is exported when the user is !

So far so good.

In order to call the pages up, you need mod_plsql and a DAD (Data Access Descriptor).

Best advice is use Apache that came with Oracle as it has mod_plsql already working - I'm told of problems with adding mod_plsql to a normal Apache setup, something to do with the compiler version as Frank van Bortel pointed out in another posting.

There's a couple of ways to create a DAD, but I had problems getting mine saved so I made the changes manually in a config file under ORACLE_HOME/Apache/modplsql.cfg - see Note 181958.1 for details of manually setting up a DAD.

> Small drawback for me. Never had to deal to Oracle's own Apache. I
> suppose that I will have to install something, meaning that I will have
> to shutdown the DB, meaning that...
>
Well, I got it installed under 817 when I went for a complete installlation. You have to edit the config file to make it listen on a different port if this is the only web server on this server. I think it defaults to 8080 but I changed mine over to 80 because the server was not seen from the outside world and this was the only web server running.

I've got 9i release 2 EE on my Mandrake Linux box and Apache is there under ORACLE_HOME/Apache.

To connect to the web page you go to this URL :

        http://server.domain/pls/dad_name/page_name

Where page_name is the name of the proc you created with loadpsp.

> Does this DBMS.HTM/loadpsp method still exist in Oracle 9?
>
Just tried it out and it is still there !

The best book (of a small list) is Oracle 101 Web Applications by Sten E Vesterli. He has a web page at vesterli.com with plenty of info. Chapter 7 is the place to be !

Cheers,
Noman.

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