Pythian Group

The latest release of DBD::Oracle is now ready and can be found at:

CPAN DBD::Oracle

The release has been fully tested with the latest version of DBI (1.53).

Below is the list of the changes and /or fixes in this release.

• Fixed execute_array to comply with DBI standard from Martin J. Evans, Xho Jingleheimerschmidt and others
• Fixed execute_array so it will not throw a Perl warning on undef values in Tuples from John Scoles
• Fixed execute_array so it will take the ora_array_chunk_size DB handle attribute
• Fixed some typos in code and READMEs from John Scoles
• Fixed a few other little bugs dealing with compatibility with Oracle 8 Changes to README from Karl Auer
• Suppress warning in 26exe_array.t from Philip Garrett
• Added support for array context aware execute_for_fetch from Martin J. Evans
• Fixed Makefile.PL for an incompatibility with ExtUtils::MM_Unix v1.50 (invoked byExtUtils::MakeMaker) from Dennis McRitchie
• Updated POD to reflect that OCI after 9.2 no longer strips trailing spaces

Please enjoy,

John Scoles.

Hello!

I am happy to present the very first post to my new group blog, where I will be inviting Pythian DBAs with interesting thoughts to contribute to prepare blogs of their own. You can read the group blog either one author at a time, by clicking the author’s name in the right-hand side of this column, or if you prefer, you can see all the posts on one page by going to the main group blog page.

My subject for this first posting: DBD::Oracle. If you have used perl to interact with a database, you are aware of the DBI that Tim Bunce and his collaborators first developed in the 1990s in order to interact with a database abstraction layer. DBD::Oracle is one of the database layer drivers that allows the DBI to communicate with Oracle. Pythian is a big user of perl and DBD::Oracle internally, as our problem tracking groupware, Support Track, and our availability monitoring software, avail, are all written using the DBI to communicate with the underlying database.

Late last year, Tim posted to the DBI users’ mailing list looking for a volunteer that would become the maintainer for DBD::Oracle. He explained that as he was no longer a user of Oracle, the task of keeping the software current was becoming increasingly difficult and distracting for him. Pythian volunteered and I am proud to announce that we made our first release, DBD::Oracle 1.17 last month. This release adds support for Oracle XE, Oracle’s free low-end database, and for installation using the Oracle Instant Client, as well as troubleshooting a variety of installation gotchas and bugs in the makefile.

Seah Hull at the Oracle Open Source blog interviewed me on the subject of Pythian taking on the stewardship of DBD::Oracle and even has a podcast of the interview available on his site.

We cover the following material:

1. Why don’t you tell us a bit about yourself, and your company?
2. When a perl programmer wants to interface with a database, what
technology do they use?
3. How did that DBI project get started, and by whom?
4. How does the DBD::Oracle component come into play? What language is it written in, and how does it interface with Oracle’s own libraries?
5. What has Pythian’s role been with this project in the past, and how has that changed recently?
6. From a business perspective, why would a company like Pythian want to contribute to this project for free? What is the advantage?
7. How have Open Source technologies benefited Pythian?
8. Do you have any other comments on Open Source, benefits, industry
threats, myths, and so on? Is everything really just free? And
furthermore won’t everyone eventually go the way of a free database?

Check it out!

Cheers,

Paul