What's New in Oracle Call Interface?

The following sections describe the new features in this Oracle Call Interface manual:

• New Features in Oracle Call Interface Release 10.2

• New Features in Oracle Call Interface Release 10.1

New Features in Oracle Call Interface Release 10.2

• Instant Client Light (English) further reduces the footprint of Instant Client.

  See Also:

  "InstantClient Light (English)"

• Database startup and shutdown can now be done from OCI.

  See Also:

  "Database Startup and Shutdown"

• You can obtain the client library version at compile-time and runtime.

  See Also:

  "OCIClientVersion()"

• A new user handle session attribute, OCI_ATTR_CURRENT_SCHEMA, which has the same functionality as the SQL command ALTER SESSION SET CURRENT_SCHEMA, is described in "OCI_ATTR_CURRENT_SCHEMA".

• OCIDirPathFlushRow() was deprecated. There are small changes in the Direct Path interfaces that are in the following sections:

  See Also:

  • "OCI_DIRPATH_COL_ERROR"

  • "Direct Path Loading of SQL String Columns"

  • "OCIDirPathColArrayToStream()"

  • "OCIDirPathLoadStream()"

• OCI clients can register for Real Application Clusters (RAC) high availability events and decide on actions for each event.

  See Also:

  • "HA Event Notification"

  • "Event Handle Attributes"

• Restrictions on selecting remote LOB data defined as character or raw datatypes by means of the data interface are eased.

  See Also:

  "Creating and Modifying Persistent LOBs" and the subsequent sections

• Two new functions read and write LOB data for multiple locators in one server round trip.

  See Also:

  • "OCILobArrayRead()"

  • "OCILobArrayWrite()"

  • "Using OCILobArrayRead() and OCILobArrayWrite()"

• For NCHAR literal support in OCI, new values of the parameter mode (OCI_NCHAR_LITERAL_REPLACE_ON and OCI_NCHAR_LITERAL_REPLACE_OFF) in the following functions control N' substitution:

  See Also:

  • "OCIEnvCreate()"

  • "OCIEnvNlsCreate()"

• The Notifications Enhancement project improves event notification.

  See Also:

  • "Publish-Subscribe Notification in OCI"

  • "Subscription Handle Attributes" for new attributes OCI_ATTR_SUBSCR_PORTNO, OCI_ATTR_SUBSCR_QOSFLAGS, OCI_ATTR_SUBSCR_TIMEOUT

• Buffered messaging is now supported within the Streams Advanced Queueing capability.

  See Also:

  • "Buffered Messaging" for concepts

  • "Streams Advanced Queuing and Publish-Subscribe Functions" for the function reference pages

  • "OCIAQListen2()" for a new function

  • "Streams Advanced Queuing Descriptor Attributes"

• Database change notification enables client applications to receive notifications when the result set of a registered query has changed.

  See Also:

  • "Database Change Notification"

  • "Change Notification Attributes"

  • "Change Notification Descriptor Attributes"

• Asynchronous commit allows the programmer greater control by using new values for the flags parameter when making calls to OCITransCommit():

  See Also:

  "OCITransCommit()"

• An Oracle wallet is a secure software container used to store authentication and signing credentials.

  See Also:

  "Secure External Password Store"

• Application context enables developers to define, set, and access application attributes.

  See Also:

  "Client Application Context"

• Proxy access for a single client can be set using various connect strings.

  See Also:

  "Client Access Through a Proxy"

• OCIPing() is used to confirm that the server connection and the server are active. It also can be used to flush all the pending OCI client-side calls to the server.

  See Also:

  "OCIPing()"

• Windows NT is no longer supported for OCI. The only Microsoft Visual C++ releases supported for the current OCI release are 7.0 and higher.

  See Also:

  Appendix D, "Getting Started with OCI for Windows"

• Transparent Application Failover (TAF) is enabled for connection pooling.

  See Also:

  "Transparent Application Failover"

• OCI Scrollable Cursors now works for remote mapped queries. Transparent Application Failover (TAF ) works with OCI Scrollable cursors.

  See Also:

  "Scrollable Cursors in OCI"

New Features in Oracle Call Interface Release 10.1

• Native float and double are supported.

  See Also:

  • "BINARY_FLOAT and BINARY_DOUBLE"

  • "Native Float and Native Double"

• OCIDescribeAny() supports rules, rule sets, and evaluation contexts.

  See Also:

  "Rule Attributes", and so on

• The OCI Instant Client capability simplifies OCI installation and saves disk space for application deployment.

  See Also:

  "OCI Instant Client"

• Additional information on upgrading to a new release of OCI is available.

  See Also:

  "Compatibility and Upgrading"

A new discussion describes when to use session pooling or connection pooling.

See Also:

"When to Use Connection Pooling, Session Pooling, or Neither"

• Batch array enqueue and dequeue functions and attributes have been added.

  See Also:

  • "OCI and Streams Advanced Queuing"

  • "Streams Advanced Queuing and Publish-Subscribe Functions"

  • "Streams Advanced Queuing Descriptor Attributes"

• LOBs can be of greater size than 4 GB. There are several new LOB functions whose names end in "2" that handle LOBs greater and smaller than 4 GB, and replace deprecated LOB functions without "2".

  See Also:

  • "Using LOBs of Size Greater than 4 GB"

  • "LOB Functions"

• Database Globalization Support is now described in this manual.

  See Also:

  • "OCI Globalization Support"

  • "OCI Globalization Support Functions"

• Statement Caching has been enhanced.

  See Also:

  "Statement Caching in OCI"

• Windows documentation is now included in this guide.

  See Also:

  Appendix D, "Getting Started with OCI for Windows"

• There is OCI support for the unified C API which is used for XMLType columns in tables (and XML documents).

  See Also:

  • "OCI Support for XML"

  • Chapter 22, "OCI XML DB Functions"

• There are new or modified functions.

  See Also:

  • "OCICollGetElemArray()"

  • "OCINumberToRealArray()"

• New modes OCI_BIND_SOFT and OCI_DEFINE_SOFT are documented.

  See Also:

  • "OCIBindByName()"

  • "OCIBindByPos()"

  • "OCIDefineByPos()"

• New attributes for end-to-end application tracing are described.

  See Also:

  • "End-to-End Application Tracing"

  • "User Session Handle Attributes"

• New attributes for Direct Path are described.

  See Also:

  • "Direct Path Context Handle (OCIDirPathCtx) Attributes"

  • "Direct Path Context Handle (OCIDirPathCtx) Attributes"