-------Original Message-------
From: vincent rogier <[email protected]>
To: Ivan Lucena <[email protected]>
Cc: Nicolas Simon <[email protected]>,
[email protected]
Subject: Re: [gdal-dev] Oracle support available by default in any
OSGeo software
Sent: Jul 23 '12 13:02
Hi all,
I just want to add some precisions about what was said in that
conversation.
Ivan is right, OCILIB is a wrapper around OCI.
But OCILIB can be built without any dependencies as it does not
require
oracle headers or libraries to compile and it can dynamically load
any
Oracle Client runtime.
If the current used driver is stable, fully compliant with its
desired
usage and if it delivers acceptable performances, there is no point
trying
to make another one using OCILIB for example.
I had a quick look at the gdal oci driver wiki page. It apparently
shows
some limitations.
I also looked at the code, and it seems limited in some areas such
as
data type support, ...
It could be also optimized in terms of OCI usage and performances.
I often see discussion in dev mailing lists like this one. And
sometimes, i
see negative reactions about using a third party wrapper for OCI
because
there are just wrappers. Yes, indeed, But wrappers like OCILIB
handle all
the common nightmares like portability across platforms, runtime
oracle
versions, and delivivers a much more maintainable application code,
much
shorter code, performance improvement due to OCI internal
expertise,
etc....
But once again, if the current driver matches its intended use
really well,
is stable, scalable and does not restrict future enhancements, you
should
stick to it and grab some pre built binaries for you OS.
Best regards,
Vincent
On Mon, Jul 23, 2012 at 7:26 PM, Ivan Lucena <[LINK:
mailto:[email protected]] [email protected]>
wrote:
Nicolas,
If you install QGIS from OSGeo4W you should be able to also install
the
Libs package "gdal-oracle: OGR OCI and GDAL GeoRaster Plugins for
Oracle"
with the files gdal_GEOR.dll and ogr_OCI.dll. That is all you need
in QGIS.
But if you don't use OSGeo4W you can grab the same files from Tamas
Szekeres website (see [LINK:
http://trac.osgeo.org/gdal/wiki/DownloadingGdalBinaries]
http://trac.osgeo.org/gdal/wiki/DownloadingGdalBinaries).
> > I't very frustrating, each time I would like to use OSGeo
software
> > (GDAL/OGR, QGIS, ...) they don't support oracle database.
Every time,
> > everything should be recompiled from source with oracle
support
enabled. A
> > long and not easy process...
I understand your frustration. But note that all GDAL/OGR driver
that have
dependency should not be incorporated by default into product
distribution
to avoid annoying "cannot find shared library xxx" messages or any
other
more serious error. Those driver are build as plugins so that they
can be
easily added or removed from the path.
> >
> > The reason usually evoked for this situation, is that Oracle
build
> > needs Oracle files that aren't freely redistributable. Ok
It's a good
> > reason.
You can freely download all the necessary files to compile against
OCI
from [LINK: http://oracle.com] oracle.com.
> >
> > I found a library, called OCILIB (<[LINK:
> > [LINK: http://orclib.sourceforge.net/]
http://orclib.sourceforge.net/] [LINK:
http://orclib.sourceforge.net/]
http://orclib.sourceforge.net/>), that
> > enable your software to dynamically connect to your oracle
database. This
> > library does not require any oracle library to compile. It's
available on
> > any platform where oracle client is available and it licensed
with
LGPL.
The OCILIB library is just a shell around OCI. You still need OCI
distribution from a server, client or instant client installation
in order
to compile or run any code based on that library.
> > But before going further, I would like to know if it seems to
you
a
> > good way to have Oracle support available by default in any
OSGeo
software
The OSGeo4W and Tamasz packages solutions are working pretty well
for
Windows users, so far. For QGIS all you have to do is to enable the
Oracle
Raster driver, is you want to use GeoRaster. Works pretty fast if
the image
has overviews. Please note that other OSGeo and commercial software
can
also access Oracle Spatial through GDAL.
> > Depending of your answers, I 'll come back to ask you how
it's the
> > best way to do that ?
I hope that would answer your question.
Regards,
Ivan
--
Vincent Rogier
