Direct Oracle Access

Direct Oracle Access enables you to seamlessly integrate Borlands Delphi or C++ Builder with Oracle databases.
Here are some key features of "Direct Oracle Access":

· High performance

Both online transaction and batch processing applications can benefit from Oracles performance features. Direct Oracle Access, as the name suggests, directly accesses the Oracle Interface. This guarantees optimal performance for standard database access functions.

· Easy application distribution

A Direct Oracle Access application does not require middleware like the BDE or ODBC, it merely requires Oracle SQL*Net or Net8. Consequently you can deploy your application without many of the version dependency or configuration problems typically involved with middleware installation.

· Oracle Package support

Most PL/SQL code in Oracle databases is programmed in packages. Direct Oracle Access provides a TOraclePackage component that allows you to easily call packaged program units without detailed declarations of these program units and their parameters.

· TOracleDataSet

The dataset component in Direct Oracle Access supports Oracle record locking, record refreshing, server generated values, automatic sequence value generation, and BLOB compression. Master/detail relations can automatically be setup if a foreign key exists between the master and detail table or if the master table contains one or more collection columns or attributes (nested table or varray).

· Query By Example mode

The TOracleDataSet component has a Query By Example mode that enables you to provide QBE Forms in your application without any additional programming, and without any additional components or controls. The resulting QBE queries are performed on the Oracle Server, so that performance will be optimal and network traffic will be minimal.

· Oracle Monitor

To monitor the database access activities of your Direct Oracle Access application you can use the Oracle Monitor utility. It displays the SQL, variables, timestamp, elapsed time, network statistics, database statistics and query execution plan of each activity.

· Alert and Pipe events

The Oracle Server includes a dbms_alert and dbms_pipe package for event processing. The TOracleEvent in Direct Oracle Access can function as a receiver for these events. It works in a background thread of your application, and can propagate database events to the familiar object events.

· SQL scripts

If you need to execute many data definition language (DDL) statements, for example to perform the database installation part of your application, you can use the TOracleScript component. It has a property editor that allows you to develop the script and the individual commands.

· Advanced Queueing

To take advantage of the Advanced Queuing option of Oracle8 you can make use of the TOracleQueue component. The TOracleQueue component encapsulates the basic functionality of the DBMS_AQ package. It provides a convenient way to enqueue messages into a queue or to dequeue messages from a queue.

· Session Pooling

In server applications that frequently need to create sessions to process requests from client applications, it may be useful to use connection pooling. Without a pooling concept, each request could lead to an actual database logon and logoff. By using the TOracleSessionPool component, you can maintain a pool of database sessions that can be used and reused for different requests.

· Support for Oracle specific features

Direct Oracle Access supports many Oracle specific features. Besides the features mentioned above, it supports Oracle8 and Oracle8i features like LOB Locators, Objects & References, XMLTYPE, Timestamps, Scrollable Queries, Password Expiration, External Procedure development, and the Oracle Services for MTS.
Requirements:
· SQL*Net, Net 8, Net 9, Net 10 or Net 11 installed.
· The supported Oracle Server versions are 7.x, 8.x, 8i, 9i, 10g and 11g on any platform.
· Direct Oracle Access is available for all recent versions of Delphi, C++Builder and Kylix.
Limitations:
· 30 days trial