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Oracle SQL Development Environment in Linux?
Jón Ragnarsson asks: "I develop Oracle applicatons for a living. And they are usually internet-related. Right now I'm developing on a Oracle 8i / Windows NT4 machine. But I have more and more become aware that NT is very limiting compared to un*x when it comes to selection of tools and servers for Internet development. I have installed Apache, perl, php and other stuff on the NT, but with much difficulty. So now I'm planning to switch my development environment to Linux (RedHat, Debian or SuSE). The thing I would miss most is the SQL Navigator, a tool I don't know how I could live without it before I started to use it. :)
I know there are some utilities available for postgres and mysql in KDE, but AFAIK, they don't work on Oracle databases. Any ideas what I could replace SQL Navigator with? Or should I start writing my own database front end?" Hey! I develop Oracle apps on Solaris and could use something like this myself!
Orac http://www.kkitts.com/ Also check out Matt's House http://www.mattshouse.com
The beauty of Oracle is that a GUI is not required. I don't understand where they would even be useful unless you were new to Oracle.
Given, sqlplus is not nearly as friendly to use as MySQL's command line client, but it gets the job done.
If you are an Oracle developer by trade, you should really learn to use the command line interface effectively. GUI's have a short life-cyle. This means that you will have to re-learn how to interface with them over and over agian as time goes on. The command line interface is much more static. It may take longer to learn, but it will pay off in the end.
Hip Hip Hooray!
VMWare is REALLY cool. I'd suggest it to anyone who was even thinking of running an X Server on a windows box (like I used to).
Werd.
Back then, Microsoft had decided that they were going to force the solution to all problems to be Windows NT.
They had to create tools to try to make NT fit the problems people try to solve using computers.
If they had looked at things the way you are, they should have concluded:
That's obviously not what has happened. Instead, NT is being billed as the ideal solution to all sorts of problems, with attempts made to make problems fit NT.
If that isn't sad, then, by he very same argument, it is silly to regard attempts to make Linux useful as "sad."
If it is sad to try to make Linux and/or problems fit one another, then it is vastly more sad that Microsoft has wasted billions of dollars doing precisely the same thing.
If you're not part of the solution, you're part of the precipitate.
You're referring to Perl Power Tools: The Unix Reconstruction Project.
On related note, ActivePerl (Perl for Win32) 5.6, which is due out next month will have support for fork(), so one of the biggest portability hurdles in moving your scripts from Unix to Win32 should disappear.
Cheers,
ZicoKnows@hotmail.com
If he doesn't want to keep a Windows box (like he is short of desk space) I wonder what the likelyhood that any of these Windows-only tools will run under Wine?
Otherwise another option might be Bochs or VMware (which a number of other people have suggested).
Since TOAD is written in Delphi, and Borland, according to most rumors, is working on a Delphi port to Linux,
Borland has since said that their Linux RAD tool is not Delphi, not C++Builder, but a new product, with a new class library. Thus, it will not be source compatible with Delphi or C++Builder. Or so Borland says.
dragonhawk@iname.microsoft.com
I do not like Microsoft. Remove them from my email address.
Hello,
My name is Matthew Chappee, and I'm the author of the Oracle Application Suite for Linux. It has been referenced in this discussion several times (usually just by address' oracle.mattshouse.com or www.mattshouse.com). There have been a lot of good ideas thrown around in this forum. I propose that we organize these nuggets so that we can address them in an organized manner. I'm actively developing my suite of applications, and am always looking for cool ideas. So, please CC me at matthew@mattshouse.com with your ideas, and we can start discussing the options on my mailing list.
Thanks,
/. finds me to be 20% Troll, 80% Funny
I use Kora and it's not bad...
http://members.xoom.com/uwagner/kora/
--
Although it make take a little work, and might be considered by your co-workers as overkill, perhaps you should consider building your own management/SQL-builder/whatever tool. If you know some Perl, you can use DBI and the Oracle DBD, possibly along with Tk, to build a pretty slick interface that will perform well and do almost everything you should need it to do. Throw in GD, ImageMagick, or GIFgraph to generate some on-the-fly images to impress your boss and co-workers (they're very fast once you load them into memory), and you have the beginnings of a wonderful tool.
I'm operating on the assumption that you know exactly what you need the tool to do, since that's what it sounds like. This should be a pretty simple task (although possibly time-consuming) for someone who knows SQL and Perl.
Just a thought.
darren
(darren)
Found these on freshmeat.. They look pretty neat..
http://oracle.mattshouse.com
http://www.oracletool.com
-- Morten Jensen
There are a few development tools that I really couldn't do without, and I have to say that Embarcadero DBArtisan & Schema Manager for Oracle (or MSSQL, etc.) are among them. They're expensive (over $1000 for the set) but I've found them invaluable. Here are the two most valuable features I would have to see before I'd switch:
1) You can make a series of interactive changes to a table schema and then have it figure out the minimal SQL to do it. If it can't be done with an Oracle primitive (e.g. renaming a column, reordering columns, changing column type) it generates all the SQL to drop/disable all dependent objects, constraints, rename the old table, create a new table, transfer the data, recreate all the dependent objects, etc.
2) It can do a diff of two database schemas, or of a database schema against a historical archive and generate SQL you can use to perform the delta. This is incredibly useful.
And there are a number of other features that make managing a monster like Oracle a lot easier. Perhaps it will eventually run adequately under WINE. I'm not saying this to promote the product, but to point out some useful features that go beyond just executing a query and seeing the results, and to get people thinking about what it is you actually do when managing a complex database. And maybe there is a more open/portable too out there to do this. (Though it's saved me enough time that I don't begrudge them their dollars - they're smart programmers, and they've done a good job.)
I use MySql, and for a while now I've been using a very nice database utility called phpMyAdmin. It runs on PHP. It was created by someone in Italy, I think, and is available from www.phpwizard.net. It has worked great for my needs, providing a convenient web-based interface for creating, modifying, and dropping tables, inserting records, and running SQL queries.
At the moment, though, it is only available for MySql and PostgreSQL as far as I know. But since you it comes as PHP source code, and PHP supports Oracle, you should be able to get it to work without too much difficulty. Of course, you would need to write your own code to support the more advanced Oracle features (like foreign keys) that MySQL doesn't have. But if you do decide to build your own interface, I would recommend this as a good place to start.
This is a java tool I came across while
looking for something else. I bookmarked it,
but I've never tried it:
http://www.pureit.se/products/dbvis/index.html
Alan Burlison wrote a tool called explain. It's written in perl, and uses DBI, DBD::Oracle, and Tcl. It comes with DBD::Oracle, so once you have that installed, do perldoc ora_explain. Check out DB_Browser (http://www.summersault.com/software/db_browser/) by Chris Hardie, dbMan (http://www.fi.muni.cz/~sorm/dbman/screenshots.htm l) by Milan Sorm, Java Database Explorer (http://www.geocities.com/RodeoDrive/1620/jexplore r.html) by Bernard Van Haecke and DBUI (http://tegan.deltanet.com/~phlip/DBUIdoc.html) as well. If you're looking for other tools that work on Linux to manage Oracle databases, Karma (http://www.panix.com/~shull/karma) by Sean Hull, Orac (http://www.kkitts.com/orac-dba) by Andy Duncan, oracletool (http://www.vonnieda.com/oracletool) Adam vonNieda, AlertView (http://www.zephrus.com/html/products.html) by Zephrus Software, as well as the other various tools mentioned on this ask slashdot forum.
http://www.oracletool.com/
Yeah, it's free as in speech and beer, too.
There's something called "Orac" as well, but it's in Perl/Tk rather than with a web interface, so I prefer the oracletool, myself. Simple to use, even NT people grasp it immediately.
Good stuff!
Remember that what's inside of you doesn't matter because nobody can see it.
I have no problem agreeing that there will be a point in time at which it will prove necessary to start coding; the point is that there are portions of the system where it is downright invaluable to have purely declarative definitions, which means that you've got a set of code on which you can unleash analysis tools that don't need to worry about the Turing-completeness of a full-scale language like Perl, PL/SQL, or Java.
It would be, for instance, a very interesting idea to compose ER diagrams using a diagramming tool like Dia. Dia generates output in the form of XML.
The really cool next step would be to take that XML and use it to generate the DDL code to generate the relevant tables, so that the diagrams represent not only instructive diagrams for communicating information about the design, but actually the code to define the declarative parts of the system.
(Note: ERWIN has the ability to do this sort of thing, permitting one to both generate table definition code from the diagram as well as to generate a diagram based on SQL DDL code...)
If you're not part of the solution, you're part of the precipitate.
Golden, PL/Edit, http://www.benthicsoftware.com/
and
TOAD, the Tool for Oracle Application Developers, http://www.toadsoft.com/ .
If you can, keep a windows box to run these and your applications and just hit the server running on Linux, over SQL*Net.
-matt
---
Wha? TV & Movie Theme Songs? Oh yeah....
I punched 'oracle' into the search box on freshmeat.net and got back a whole slew of hits, several of which sound like possibilities for what this guy is asking for, and probably a few others that might be other interesting tools for him to look at.
Can't you use most management tools to manage a database over the network? Why not keep an NT workstation around to run the admin tools you can't get, while your database sits on Linux?
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
First of join the Oracle-LINUX mailing list.
Send email to ListGuru@fatcity.com
In the body put SUBSCRIBE ORACLE-LINUX-L
Many a great discussion happens on this list. It does generate a TON of traffic though.
A good repository of tools is available at
here
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I've been waiting for a discussion about this topic to pop up, so I'm happy to add my few cents.
I'm currently working on a web development project (using Oracle 8.0.5) with some folks and we're using Linux as the development enviornment. I've not actually ever used NT for this sort of thing, so I'm not familiar with the joys of SQL Navigator (for better or for worse).
In scouring the pages of freshmeat and other sources, the best tool I've found is called dbMan. It's based on Perl, Tk, and DBI interfaces and works quite well for some purposes.
Currently, the version I have (0.0.9pre1) lets you browse and modify tables and table data in a spreadsheet-like interface (adding new rows doesn't seem to work perfectly), run command line SQL queries with command history, and do some basic import-export functions. (check the website for more details.)
I am very interested, however, as to what other people use and if there's anything a bit more hard core than dbMan.
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