SODA for C Overview

2 SODA for C Overview

SODA for C is a C API that is part of Oracle Call Interface (OCI). It implements Simple Oracle Document Access (SODA). You can use it to perform create, read (retrieve), update, and delete (CRUD) operations on documents of any kind, and you can use it to query JSON documents.

You compile programs that use SODA for C the same way you compile other OCI programs.

SODA is a set of NoSQL-style APIs that let you create and store collections of documents in Oracle Database, retrieve them, and query them, without needing to know Structured Query Language (SQL) or how the data in the documents is stored in the database.

Oracle Database supports storing and querying JSON data. SODA collections are backed by ordinary Oracle Database tables and views. Because of this, you can generally take advantage of database features for use with the content of SODA documents. For example, you can apply database analytics and reporting to JSON data, and you can include JSON data in aggregation and join operations. In addition, your applications can use database transactions.

SODA interacts with the database transparently. To use SODA you generally do not need a database administrator, and you do not need to program with a database language, such as structured query language (SQL). SODA for C uses OCI and the database to carry out CRUD and query operations, after translating them to Oracle SQL with SQL/JSON operators.

The remaining topics of this document describe various features of SODA for C.

Note:

This book provides information about using SODA with C applications, and it describes all SODA features currently available for use with C. To use SODA for C you also need to understand SODA generally. For such general information, please consult Oracle Database Introduction to Simple Oracle Document Access (SODA). Some features described in that book are not yet available with SODA for C.
This book does not provide general information about OCI, including reference information about the SODA for C functions and constants. For such information, please consult Oracle Call Interface Programmer's Guide.