Re: WWW with relational database

ballard_at_igs.net (Michael Ballard) wrote:
>In article <3qiihj$m25_at_news.tuwien.ac.at>, bu@eecws5.tuwien.ac.at says...
>>
>>Hi all,
>>Is there a way to connect a WWW server with a RDBMS (preferably oracle)?
>
>Yes. I am looking into this add to our repertoire. I suggest
>you check out the WWW pages at http://www.oracle.com , where
>they have some information on a web to oracle gateway interface.
>

Hello -

The Oracle World Wide Web Interface Kit has been available on the internet since the beginning of February, it includes demos, examples, and code that allow you to integrate Oracle and the Web. This is available free to download, the code can be downloaded either as precompiled binaries for SunOS or source code is available in tar format.

Here is an excerpt from the WWW Interface Kit information found on the <A REF = "http://www.oracle.com"> Oracle Home Page </A> under Free Trial Software:  

Oracle World Wide Web Interface Kit Fact Sheet   

The Expanding Internet
The Internet has expanded well beyond its original goal of providing a way for
scientific researchers to share knowledge. It has now become a marketplace for
technologies and products that are creating an information revolution in  

business and society.   

The World Wide Web has played an important role in this revolution and is now
the fastest expanding information service within the Internet as well as on
the networks of today's corporations.   

The Need for Information
The challenge now facing every commercial and service organization is how to
take advantage of the World Wide Web as an information delivery mechanism.   

In addition, the World Wide Web presents new business opportunities and challenges such as those of electronic commerce. A whole new market has  

emerged for delivering information and products to millions worldwide via the
Internet's global network.   

Oracle and the World Wide Web
As the World's leading information management company, Oracle recognizes and
supports our customers' needs to integrate their existing data with the World
Wide Web. With this in mind, the Oracle World Wide Web Interface Kit is  

available from Oracle Corporation to encourage and help our customers to begin
taking advantage of the Oracle7 Database Management System in conjunction with
the World Wide Web.   

The Oracle World Wide Web Interface Kit contains new and interesting applications for a web server and different gateways that connect Oracle to
the Web. In the true spirit of the Internet, some parts of the kit come from
other Internet users who have already integrated their Oracle databases with
the World Wide Web in novel ways.   

Using the World Wide Web Interface Kit The kit contains a series of examples and demos that allow anyone with basic
experience of developing applications for the World Wide Web and Oracle to
enhance their Web Servers with powerful search, retrieval and transactional
characteristics.   

The practical uses of the Oracle World Wide Web Interface Kit include integrating information retrieved from the Oracle database into web pages.
This would allow users to access and browse information simply and effectively
through Web Browsers that require no training or expertise to use. This form
of application could be used on the Internet as well as within an organization
to create public or private information systems.   

Furthermore, by using the data integrity and transactional nature of the  

Oracle database, the Oracle World Wide Web Interface Kit could be used to  

create a new and innovative application paradigm. Web server users could  

trigger transactions that result in database updates that are entirely integrated with existing business processes. You could, for example, use the
Oracle World Wide Web Interface Kit to build a Web-based electronic storefront
which delivers orders into an existing order entry mechanism.   

World Wide Web Interface Kit Contents
The Oracle World Wide Web Software Interface Kit contains a series of Common
Gateway Interface (CGI) applications, all of which include demos and supporting documentation:   

Web - Oracle - Web (WOW). An Oracle-written package which uses Oracle's  

powerful extension to SQL - PL/SQL - to implement basic Hypertext Markup  

Language (HTML) operations. WOW allows you to use Oracle7 stored procedures
as CGI programs. The kit contains database packages for HTML encapsulation as
well as a CGI PL/SQL gateway that allows you to use PL/SQL procedures directly
within HTML documents. The package provides a standalone PL/SQL compiler with
extensions for the Web.   

PL/SQL Editor and Development tool. A series of HTML pages which allow you to
write dynamic PL/SQL and test it against an Oracle database in real time.   

This package provides an easy development environment for the WOW package  

described above.   

The Oracle World Wide Web Interface Kit also contains a series of public  

domain examples of how to integrate Oracle databases with the World Wide Web,
as follows:   

ORAYWWW - This example provides you with a gateway based on OraPerl, an implementation of Oracle access via the popular PERL programming language.
This example enables you to browse tables and create HTML forms easily. It
was contributed by Arthur Yasinski of the Department of Natural Resources,
Canadian Forest Service, Canada.   

WORA - This gateway is a user-friendly database browser written in Pro*C,  

contributed by Constantin Ocrainets of JINR, Russia.   

DECOUX - A post-processing gateway that will replace SQL and formatting directives delimited by pseudo-HTML tags in standard HTML documents with  

query-results from an Oracle database. This gateway was contributed by Guy
Decoux of France.   

Text Search System (TSS) - A full-scale indexing and free-text search system.
The interface is written entirely in Oracle7 PL/SQL stored procedures, making
it very easy to create a Web front-end by using the WOW gateway. This system
was contributed by Mr. Larsson of Astrakan, Sweden.   

MORE - A collection of Pro*C gateways for maintaining an information repository. This system was contributed by David Eichmann of RBSE, RICIS,  

University of Houston, Clear Lake, Houston, Texas.   

In addition to the applications and demos themselves, the Oracle World Wide
Web Interface Kit also provides the following additional utilities to simplify
and ease application development:   

Perl - A popular public domain interpreting programming language developed by
Larry Wall.   

OraPerl - An Oracle extension to Perl with user exits developed by Kevin  

Stock.   

HotMetal - An HTML editor for UNIX from SoftQuad.      

If you have any further questions, please don't hesitate to <A href="mailto:rhodge_at_us.oracle.com">send me a note</A>.

Thanks,

Randy Received on Tue Jun 06 1995 - 00:00:00 CEST