Perl DBI ... getting me started

[asearle]

Hi everyone,

I have a connection of Oracle SQL scripts which I currently run with Oracle SQL*Plus (the Oracle command-line tool).

Now I would like to make these scripts more 'dynamic' and would like to implement them with Perl DBI.

I am working with Windows (XP), have installed ActivePerl 5.8.8 and have found stacks of expamples in the internet explaining how to use DBI. That's great!

In the examples that I downloaded, they often mention 'activating DBI' and configuring it for particular databases (in my case this would be Oracle). This operation sounds simple but is normally explained for running DBI under Unix/Linux.

So my question here is whether anyone can point me towards a little HOWTO which explains the configuration for Windows (NB: I have ODBC and tnsnames.ora installed).

I am sure that once I get over these initial issues, then it will be plain sailing.

Regards,
Alan Searle

[asearle]

Just another comment on my issue ...

I have been fishing around in the Perl documentation and found the following:

@driver_names = DBI->available_drivers;

So I commented out my connection calls to Oracle and ran a diagnostic to see which drivers were installed. I got the following ...

DBM
ExampleP
File
Proxy
SQLite
Sponge

This makes me think that in my installation the Oracle driver is currently not active. I imagine that I need to declare the path/location of the driver (or ODBC?) to DBI so that my program can use it.

So maybe someone can point me in the right direction? Or send a snippet of syntax showing how to set up DBI drivers in Perl.

Regards and thanks,
Alan Searle

[asearle]

I have been fishing some more and have found the following (very good) HOWTO explaining the installation of DBI ...

http://www.keller.com/curric/dbweb-setup.html#DBIDBDWIN32

However, these instructions demand that the user runs the program ppm.pl in order to get the PPM> prompt and then install database drivers.

However, I have scanned my perl directories (a simple, local install) and cannot find this program. Is this maybe because I am using Perl 5.8.8?

Any tips here would be a great help.

Regards,
Alan Searle.

[GunnarH]

Sounds to me as if you need DBD::Oracle.