Oratcl is a dynamic extension of the Tcl language that integrates Oracle OCI calls into a set of Tcl commands that allow Oracle access via Tcl.
OraTcl 3 and up supports Tcl 8 (tclX recommended), and supports Tcl 8.x, includes Windows NT DLLs, cursor variables from PL/SQL, can bind Tcl variables to orafetch results, can bind Tcl variables to Oracle :bind variables, supports asynchronous SQL execution. It supports Tcl/Tk 8.x, Oracle 7/8/8i/9i/10g/11g, i18n data, and TEA/Stubs as well as Solaris and Windows NT. Oracle has released a version of its 8.0.5 database product for Linux at the oracle web site.
Oratcl was one of the first, and remains one of the most widely-used, examples of a third-party language interacting with databases. Oracle has only acknowledged Oratcl's existence though ([L1 ]), always documenting use of its core RDBMS product in terms of C, its proprietary PL/SQL, and, in recent years, Java.
OraTcl 2.5 was the last version to support Tcl 7.6.
Insert your favorite Oratcl tips, tricks, and hints, etc. here. Also, point to various useful reading, such as BOOK Tcl/Tk Tools, or BOOK Oracle and Open Source.
Also add here information about tips for managing Unicode, images, etc. from within Oracle tables.
One thing that was discovered is that one needs to set something called the NLS before starting oracle and attempting to deal with UTF-8 data. This can be done using the NLS_LANG environment variable, or using something like SQLPLUS's alter session set nls_territory and alter session set nls_language to appropriate values.
Apparently, as long as NLS_LANG is set to some valid language, oracle then handles a localization sweep over the data properly before handing the data back to the requestor. Then, you do a call to
encoding convertfrom utf-8 $string
and off you go.
Todd points out that, "OraTcl relies on the Oracle install. This means different things on different platforms.
On Unix, the ORACLE_HOME environment variable must point to a valid Oracle install.
On windows, the ociw32.lib file must be found in the WINDOWS search path. In the past, I have had to place the oracle directory in the windows PATH variable in autoexec.bat. In later releases, the registry information was sufficient to find the file."
Laurent Riesterer 2005-09-23: The easiest way to install the required library (tested on Windows) is to use the "Oracle Instant Client" setup. You just need to unzip the content of one file in a folder (about 80 MB), add this folder to you path and then you can start to use Oratcl. You don't need any configuration file, just use a fully qualified name in your connection string:
user/password@//my.oracle.server:port/my.database.service
LV: For which version of Oratcl is this template - I seem to recall that at version changes, the paradigm used by oratcl programs had to change...
A recent article on comp.lang.tcl by Kevin Rodgers asked for comments about this sample boilerplate:
# For error reporting:
set program [file tail $argv0]
# Package interface:
package require Oratcl
# Connect to the $env(TWO_TASK) database as USER with PASSWORD:
if [catch {oralogon "USER/PASSWORD"} ora_logon] {
puts stderr "$program: $ora_logon"
exit 1
}
if [catch {oraopen $ora_logon} ora_statement] {
oralogoff $ora_logon
puts stderr "$program: $ora_statement"
exit 1
}
#if [catch {oraconfig $ora_statement fetchrows 1024} ora_error] {
# puts stderr "$program: $ora_error"
#}
# Execute SQL statement:
set sql "SELECT column_1, ... column_N FROM ... WHERE ..."
# Note that for Oratcl 4.x, the $oramsg references have to change to
# [oramsg $ora_statement rc]
if [catch {orasql $ora_statement $sql} ora_error] {
puts stderr "$program: $ora_error"
} elseif {$oramsg(rc) != 0} {
puts stderr "$program: $oramsg(errortxt)"
} else {
# Process each row with column_I bound to var_I:
while {$oramsg(rc) == 0} {
if [catch {orafetch $ora_statement \
{... $var_1 ... $var_N ...} \
'@' var_1 1 ... var_N N} \
ora_error] {
puts stderr "$program: $ora_error"
break
} elseif {$oramsg(rc) == 1403} {
break
} elseif {$oramsg(rc) != 0} {
puts stderr "$program: $oramsg(errortxt)"
break
}
}
}
# Disconnect from the $env(TWO_TASK) database:
if [catch {oraclose $ora_statement ora_error] {
puts stderr "$program: $ora_error"
}
if [catch {oralogoff $ora_logon ora_error] {
puts stderr "$program: $ora_error"
}See also http://www.dbcorp.com/downloads/ORATCL.ppt for an intro to Oratcl (and Oracle's OEM) from 2000.
Addition of pointers to other Oratcl tutorials - particular current ones - would be greatly appreciated.
RLH: I would like to second the request for tutorials and example pointers. I am new to Tcl and while I can use Perl/DBI to do what I want, I would rather use Tcl. :-)
Kroc 2006-10-18:
OraTcl relies on the Oracle install but that's not so easy to install Oracle client on Mac OS X. Here are the steps I followed to get something that works:
1) Download Oracle client 8.1.7:
The file to get is Oracle 8i v8.1.7.1 OCI / Mac OS X from this page: http://www.oracle.com/technology/software/tech/java/sqlj_jdbc/htdocs/macsoft.html (you must register to get it but it's free).
Uncompress MacOSX_8171.cpio and you'll get 3 files: MacOSX_8.1.7.1_OCI_Demo.zip, Oracle_8.1.7.1_Client.zip et Release_Notes.zip.
2) Client installation:
Uncompress Oracle_8.1.7.1_Client.zip then move Oracle_8.1.7.1_Client directory in your home.
Then you must edit ~/Oracle_8.1.7.1_Client/network/admin/tnsnames.ora to fit your server parameters. At the end, it should be something like this:
MYBASE =
(DESCRIPTION =
(ADDRESS_LIST =
(ADDRESS = (PROTOCOL = TCP)(HOST = 192.168.1.119)(PORT = 1521))
)
(CONNECT_DATA =
(SID = MYBASE)
)
)3) Environment variable:
At least one environment variable, ORACLE_HOME, must be set before loading OraTcl:
set ::env(ORACLE_HOME) [file normalize ~/Oracle_8.1.7.1_Client]
Tested on Mac OS X 10.4.8 with OraTcl 4.4
Note that Oracle 10 brings, at least on some platforms, another wrinkle. For me, on a SPARC Solaris 9 system, Oracle 10 defaults to 64 bit libraries. If you are using ActiveTcl or something similar, you will find that oratcl was compiled as a 32 bit interface. This means that you need to use the environment varirable:
# For 32 bit tcl on 64 bit solaris with 64 bit oracle. export ORACLE_LIBRARY=$ORACLE_HOME/lib32/libclntsh.so
so that oratcl can be loaded. This is not a bug in oratcl. It is the mechanism that Oracle provides for someone to use the 32 bit libraries. You just need to know whether you are using a 32 bit or a 64 bit tcl so that you get the correct shared libraries.
Has anyone written a Tcl/Tk tool that provides one with the ability to browse (and perhaps update) oracle table data?
osalcescu 2008-06-24: please check Tom's wisqlite application, it may be what you're looking for. http://www.nyx.net/~tpoindex/wisqlite.html
The graphic is interesting. I didn't see the code there, so I don't know how it works in general. Looking on this wiki, I only see references to it being related to sybtcl. Looking in the sybtcl and oratcl code distributions, I see the code in the sybtcl distribution, but I don't see a comparable version for oratcl. The code distributed with sybtcl is very sybase specific - it isn't a matter of just changing the package require statement. I could probably go through and rewrite it to work with oratcl, but right now I don't have the available time to do that. Thanks for the pointer though.
escargo: The link for wisqlite does not show how to get the application, plus the page claims to have last been revised in 1995. Tom's home page there [L2 ] says it was last revised in 1999, and has no link to wisqlite.
aec - 2008-06-25 - I found an old distribution of oratcl which contains oddis and wosql in the examples subdirectory which may be what you are seeking. Goto ftp://tcl.activestate.com/pub/tcl/mirror/ftp.procplace.com/sorted/databases/oratcl-2.5/index.html and get the oratcl-2.5.tar.gz archive file.
LV Thanks. With that name, I was able to track down a copy. I actually found a development branch of oratcl 2.7 which still had a version of wosql in it. I wonder whether anyone has done anything with it in the past few years.
osalcescu - 2008-06-26 - Well, I did develop, some time ago, a more basic utility. Nothing that fancy. If you're interested I can pass you the code, could be your start-up coding boost. Or not... :) Leave an email address here if you're interested.
escargo - Aren't there two programs mentioned here, which are distinct: wisqlite (for which no source has been identified), and wosql, which has been found again? Based on the name, I would have thought that wisqlite was a client SQLite, nor Oracle.
LV wisqlite is unrelated to Oratcl. It was, in fact, created before SQLite was created! The name is, I suspect, a play on the idea of a light weight "w"indowing "sq" "lite" weight program, probably designed more for conveying the idea of what someone could do rather than intended to be a full fledged production quality application. Tom provided, as a part of the sybtcl distribution, the original application. When I went looking for wosql, on some web site I ran across a note that implied that code was basically a port of wisqlite to oratcl, and thus the name "w"indowing "o"racle "sql" wosql. TP LV is pretty much correct concerning the naming wisqlite and wosql. Sybase's command line utility was/is called isql, and Sybase had a Windows version called wisql. I thought my tool for Sybtcl was lighter and simpler, thus the name wisqlite.
LV Note that wosql's history comments seem to indicate that the last release was back in the mid to late 1990s. If you don't have older oratcl's installed on your system, you may find problems. If you do have older ones, you will have to experiment with versions to find out which one is the one you need.
LV 2008-1117:
In moving from oratcl 4.2 to 4.4, I noticed a difference in behavior in one of my programs. Turns out that in my program I used:
orafetch ... -command { name }In my program, the name proc returned without specifying an argument. In oratcl 4.2, the program worked fine. In oratcl 4.4, the return code from orafetch appears to have become the return value from name. I changed name to return 0 instead of nothing, and my program worked again.
In my case, this was a better coding style anyways, so it worked out well. Just wanted to be certain that anyone else encountering peculiar behavior thinks of this.
LV 2009-01-21:
I have a situation for which I'm looking for a solution.
I have two data sources - one, a flat text file, containing deliminated fields of information. The first field is an item identifier.
The second data source is an oracle table, where each column corresponds to the fields from the flat file and the rows should correspond to each line.
What I am wanting to end up with is a program that reports items from the flat file that are not found in the table, and items in the table which are not found in the flat file.
I supposed I could dynamically generate a select statement with a where col_name not in (val1, val2, ...., val2000) type statement, but I was wondering if anyone had other ideas of ways to approach the situation.
Harm Olthof 2009-01-22:
There are quite a few solutions from the Oracle side.
(1) you can import the flat file into your database, using sqlloader;
(2) From Oracle version 9.x and higher you can also link it, using the concept of "External Tables";
(3) Oracle also has a [webdav] solution, but this not generally made available by the dba-er. I think [ftp] is also possible;
(4) You could convert your flat file to xml and then there are more sophisticated possibilities; All of these possibilities expose the flat file as a table and then you can do a "..where not exists.." query. Oracle has a kind of combination of our wiki and a newsgroup, run by Tom Kyte on: [L3 ]. If you go there and search for things like sqlloader, external tables, csv, flat file etc. you'll find a lot of explanations and examples. No [Tcl] solution. It would be great if someone wrote a tcl Oracle Cartridge so we could use tcl instead of pl/sql.