DBD::Oracle 1.21 Released

The latest release of DBD::Oracle is now ready and can be found at: CPAN DBD::Oracle. It is a Perl module that works with the DBI module to provide access to Oracle databases. It is maintained by me, John Scoles, under the auspices of The Pythian Group as open source/free software.

The release has been fully tested with the latest version of DBI (1.601).

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

Changes in DBD-Oracle 1.21(svn rev 11067) 11th April 2008

• Added Notes to README.win32.txt on installing Instant Client 1.1.0.6.0; from John Scoles
• Added the oci_typecode_name method to get the name rather than just the number of an OCI_TYPECODE; from John Scoles
• Fixed a unreported bug with Embedded Objects; from John Scoles
• Fixes for #34621 & 33791 from RT cpan
• Added patch to allow faster fetch from REF CURSORs; from Biswadeep Chowdhury
• Updated the Todo file for next version; from John Scoles
• Added support for the 10.2 Data Interface for Persistent LOBs; by John Scoles
• Changed the way pre-fetching is done; by John Scoles
• Added support for Scrollable cursors; from John Scoles
• Changed the max size of cache_rows to a sb4 rather than a int and or a ub4; from John Scoles
• Added support for Lobs in select of OCI Embedded Objects; from John Scoles with a big thankyou to Paul Weiss
• Fixed for embedded object in object; from Paul Weiss
• Added support for direct insert of large XML data into XMLType fields; from Hendrik Fuss & John Scoles
• Fixed memory leak (not releasing Temp Lob with OCILobFreeTemporary) when created for a bind; from John Scoles
• Added support for bind_param_inout_array for use with execute_array; from John Scoles
• Added enhancement for Embedded Objects handling; from Paul G. Weiss
• Fixed to Makefile.PL let it read makefiles from other makes from; Alexander V Alekseev
• Updated POD to tell users to Avoid Using “SQL Call”; from Charles Jardine
• Updated POD to account for rt.cpan.org #30910: “DBD-Oracle crashes when trying to read empty LOB”; from John Scoles
• Added DBD::Oracle impdata/threads patch; from Jeffrey Klein

In this release there are a number of new features. One important one you might want to have a look at is support for binding an array for in-out operations with execute_array. Given this SQL:

INSERT INTO foo (id, bar) VALUES (foo_id_seq.nextval, ?) RETURNING id INTO ?

and using execute_array to insert 200 records, you will get an array back of the 200 new IDs inserted.

I have also added support for directly inserting of large XML files into an XMLType field.

Another important addition is support for Persistent LOBs if you are using Oracle 10.2 or later. You can now treat LOBs as if they were any other form of data, so say goodbye to LOB locators.

Finally, I have added support for native Oracle ‘Scrolling Cursors’.

There were also a number of bug fixes and code updates as listed above.

Cheers, John Scoles.