Introduction

These functions allow you to access Oracle9, Oracle8 and Oracle7 databases. It uses the Oracle Call Interface (OCI).

This extension is more flexible than the old 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. You are recommended to use this extension instead of old Oracle extension where possible.

Requirements

You will need the Oracle client libraries to use this extension. Windows users will need at least Oracle version 8.1 to use the php_oci8.dll dll.

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.

Installation

You have to compile PHP with the option --with-oci8[=DIR], where DIR defaults to your environment variable ORACLE_HOME.

If you're using Oracle Instant Client, you need to build PHP with the option --with-oci8-instant-client[=DIR]. Note that Oracle Instant Client support first appeared in versions 4.3.11 and 5.0.4.

Runtime Configuration

This extension has no configuration directives defined in php.ini.

Resource Types

Predefined Constants

The constants below are defined by this extension, and will only be available when the extension has either been compiled into PHP or dynamically loaded at runtime.

Examples

Example 1. OCI Hints <?php // by sergo at bacup dot 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); $clob->save("some text"); OCICommit($conn); ?>

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 at remoterealty dot com $sth = OCIParse($dbh, "begin sp_newaddress( :address_id, '$firstname', '$lastname', '$company', '$address1', '$address2', '$city', '$state', '$postalcode', '$country', :error_code );end;"); // This calls stored procedure sp_newaddress, with :address_id being an // in/out variable and :error_code being an out variable. // Then you do the binding:    OCIBindByName($sth, ":address_id", $addr_id, 10);    OCIBindByName($sth, ":error_code", $errorcode, 10);    OCIExecute($sth); ?>