Glossary

assembly

Assembly is Microsoft's term for the module that is created when a DLL or .EXE is complied by a .NET compiler.

BFILES

External binary files that exist outside the database tablespaces residing in the operating system. BFILES are referenced from the database semantics, and are also known as external LOBs.

Binary Large Object (BLOB)

A large object data type whose content consists of binary data. Additionally, this data is considered raw as its structure is not recognized by the database.

Character Large Object (CLOB)

The LOB data type whose value is composed of character data corresponding to the database character set. A CLOB may be indexed and searched by the Oracle Text search engine.

data provider

As the term is used with Oracle Data Provider for .NET, a data provider is the connected component in the ADO.NET model and transfers data between a data source and the DataSet.

DataSet

A DataSet is an in-memory copy of database data. The DataSet exists in memory without an active connection to the database.

dirty writes

Dirty writes means writing uncommitted or dirty data.

DDL

DDL refers to data definition language, which includes statements defining or changing data structure.

DOM

Document Object Model (DOM) is an application program interface (API) for HTML and XML documents. It defines the logical structure of documents and the way that a document is accessed and manipulated.

Extensible Stylesheet Language Transformation (XSLT)

The XSL W3C standard specification that defines a transformation language to convert one XML document into another.

flush

Flush or flushing refers to recording changes (that is, sending modified data) to the database.

Global Assembly Cache (GAC)

A cache for .NET assemblies.

goodness

The degree of load in the Oracle database. The lighter load is better and vice versa.

implicit database connection

The connection that is implicitly available from the context of the .NET stored procedure execution.

instantiate

A term used in object-based languages such as C# to refer to the creation of an object of a specific class.

invalidation message

The content of a change notification which indicates that the cache is now invalid

Large Object (LOB)

The class of SQL data type that is further divided into internal LOBs and external LOBs. Internal LOBs include BLOBs, CLOBs, and NCLOBs while external LOBs include BFILEs.

Microsoft .NET Framework Class Library

The Microsoft .NET Framework Class Library provides the classes for the .NET framework model.

namespace

• .NET:

  A namespace is naming device for grouping related types. More than one namespace can be contained in an assembly.

• XML Documents:

  A namespace describes a set of related element names or attributes within an XML document.

National Character Large Object (NCLOB)

The LOB data type whose value is composed of character data corresponding to the database national character set.

Oracle Net Services

The Oracle client/server communication software that offers transparent operation to Oracle tools or databases over any type of network protocol and operating system.

OracleDataReader

An OracleDataReader is a read-only, forward-only result set.

Oracle XML DB

Oracle XML DB is the name for a distinct group of technologies related to high-performance XML storage and retrieval that are available within the Oracle database. Oracle XML DB is not a separate server.

Oracle XML DB is based on the W3C XML data model.

PL/SQL

The Oracle procedural language extension to SQL.

primary key

The column or set of columns included in the definition of a table's PRIMARY KEY constraint.

reference semantics

Reference semantics indicates that assignment is to a reference (an address such as a pointer) rather than to a value. See value semantics.

REF

A data type that encapsulates references to row objects of a specified object type.

result set

The output of a SQL query, consisting of one or more rows of data.

Safe Type Mapping

Safe Type Mapping allows the OracleDataAdapter to populate a DataSet with .NET type representations of Oracle data without any data or precision loss.

savepoint

A point in the workspace to which operations can be rolled back.

stored procedure

A stored procedure is a PL/SQL block that Oracle stores in the database and can be executed from an application.

Transparent Application Failover (TAF)

Transparent Application Failover is a runtime failover for high-availability environments. It enables client applications to automatically reconnect to the database if the connection fails. This reconnect happens automatically from within the Oracle Call Interface (OCI) library.

Unicode

Unicode is a universal encoded character set that enables information from any language to be stored using a single character set.

URL

URL (Universal Resource Locator).

value semantics

Value semantics indicates that assignment copies the value, not the reference or address (such as a pointer). See reference semantics.

XPath

XML Path Language (XPath), based on a W3C recommendation, is a language for addressing parts of an XML document. It is designed to be used by both XSLT and XPointer. It can be used as a searching or query language as well as in hypertext linking.