XLVI. Oracle 8 functions

These functions allow you to access Oracle8 and Oracle7 databases. It uses the Oracle8 Call-Interface (OCI8). You will need the Oracle8 client libraries to use this extension.

This extension is more flexible than the standard Oracle extension. It supports binding of global and local PHP variables to Oracle placeholders, has full LOB, FILE and ROWID support and allows you to use user-supplied define variables.

Before using this extension, make sure that you have set up your oracle environment variables properly for the Oracle user, as well as your web daemon user. The variables you might need to set are as follows:

• ORACLE_HOME

• ORACLE_SID

• LD_PRELOAD

• LD_LIBRARY_PATH

• NLS_LANG

• ORA_NLS33

After setting up the environment variables for your webserver user, be sure to also add the webserver user (nobody, www) to the oracle group.

Example 1. OCI Hints <?php // by sergo@bacup.ru // Use option: OCI_DEFAULT for execute command to delay execution OCIExecute($stmt, OCI_DEFAULT); // for retrieve data use (after fetch): $result = OCIResult($stmt, $n); if (is_object ($result)) $result = $result->load(); // For INSERT or UPDATE statement use: $sql = "insert into table (field1, field2) values (field1 = 'value', field2 = empty_clob()) returning field2 into :field2"; OCIParse($conn, $sql); $clob = OCINewDescriptor($conn, OCI_D_LOB); OCIBindByName ($stmt, ":field2", &$clob, -1, OCI_B_CLOB); OCIExecute($stmt, OCI_DEFAULT); $clob->save ("some text"); ?>

You can easily access stored procedures in the same way as you would from the commands line.

Example 2. Using Stored Procedures <?php // by webmaster@remoterealty.com $sth = OCIParse ( $dbh, "begin sp_newaddress( :address_id, '$firstname', '$lastname', '$company', '$address1', '$address2', '$city', '$state', '$postalcode', '$country', :error_code );end;" ); // This calls stored procedure sp_newaddress, with :addre