From Support Wiki
16 October, 1997
Connecting to Oracle 8
Description:
Centura Team Developer and SQLWindows users can connect to version 8 Oracle servers. The same functionality is available as with Oracle 7 servers. No change should be required for applications that are already deployed. For applications under development or Quest users developing activities, a change in the meta data (also known as the system directory or the data dictionary) in Oracle 8 requires a new version of the view scripts installed when setting up connectivity via Centura's Oracle routers.
Status:
In order to access Oracle 8 servers fully, download the new versions of the view scripts. For Oracle 7, these scripts were named view7.ora and plsview7.ora. The new versions are, as expected, named view8.ora and plsview8.ora. They are installed in exactly the same manner as previously except for the name change. Consult the appropriate Centura product documentation for installation information.
Additional Information:
The following information is not specific to Centura products but may be helpful to those configuring our products to work with Oracle servers.
Oracle 8 has replaced SQL*Net with a new product called Net8. Net8 is fully backward compatible with SQL*Net 2.x. It will not work with SQL*Net 1.x. Anyone with SQL*Net 1.x will not be able to connect to Oracle 8.
Note that there is no 16 bit Net8. SQLWindows users already using SQL*Net 2.x will need no changes on their client machines to connect to Oracle 8.
CTD users have a choice. They can continue to use any version of SQL*Net 2.x they have, or they can install Net8 to connect to either Oracle 7 or Oracle 8. Net8 clients can connect to Oracle 7.1, Oracle 7.2 and Oracle 7.3 servers also. Only Oracle 7.0 is not supported in this configuration.
Please contact Oracle Corporation for information on their client networking software.
Using OCIW32.DLL:
In CTD 1.1.1, the Oracle router utilizes an Oracle DLL named OCIW32.DLL. As the Oracle documentation describes the function of this library, it uses the 'variable' ORAOCI to determine the name of the Oracle client DLL to load. If ORAOCI is not defined, OCIW32 will search through a predefined list of known Oracle client DLL names (most recent to least recent releases) until it either finds one or exhausts the known names and returns an error. The version of OCIW32.DLL that ships with CTD has a predefined list of Oracle client DLL names which predates the release of Oracle 8. If a particular workstation has only Oracle 8 files installed, the Oracle client DLL will not be found; this will have a name like ORA803.DLL. To correct this problem, either delete or rename the OCIW32.DLL that comes with CTD so that the Oracle router will load the OCIW32.DLL released by Oracle which knows about the Oracle 8 client DLL names, or define the variable ORAOCI to point to ORA803.DLL (or whatever name is current). This variable is located in the registry, and the TD release notes contain instructions on how to locate it and set its value.
Larry Johnson
Senior Staff Consultant
Centura Software