Using Shared Libraries

A shared library is an operating system file, such as a Windows DLL or a Solaris shared object, that stores the coded implementation of external procedures. Access to the shared library from Oracle occurs by using an alias library, which is a schema object that represents the library within PL/SQL. For security, creation of an alias library requires DBA privileges. To create the alias library (such as DS_Lib in the following example), you must decide on the operating system location for the library, log in as a DBA or as a user with the CREATE LIBRARY PRIVILEGE, and then enter a statement such as the following:

CREATE OR REPLACE LIBRARY DS_Lib AS  
     '/data_cartridge_dir/libdatastream.so;

Note: In Oracle8i, the absolute path to the shared library must be specified, because Oracle does not search operating system environment variables (such as LD_LIBRARY_PATH) to resolve the location of shared libraries from the alias library name.

This example creates the alias library schema object in the database, and hereafter you can refer to the shared library by the name DS_Lib from within PL/SQL.