Changes in This Release for Oracle Call Interface Programmer's Guide

Oracle C Client Interface (OCI) support for the following new and changed features:

• Support for row count per iteration for array DML includes:

  • New mode parameter attribute: OCI_RETURN_ROW_COUNT_ARRAY in the OCIStmtExecute() call

  • New statement handle attribute: OCI_ATTR_ROW_COUNT_ARRAY

  See "OCIStmtExecute()" and "Statement Handle Attributes" for more information.

• Support for client side deployment settings. This includes:

  • New deployment settings oraaccess.xml file

  See "OCI Client-Side Deployment Parameters Using oraaccess.xml" for more information.

• Change in High Availability infrastructure to use Oracle Notification Service (ONS)

  See "HA Event Notification" for more information.

• Support for auto-tuning client statement caching. This includes:

  • New auto-tuning client statement cache feature

  • New session handle attribute: OCI_ATTR_MAX_OPEN_CURSORS

  See "Client Statement Cache Auto-Tuning" and "User Session Handle Attributes" for more information.

• Support for implicit results includes:

  • New API: OCIStmtGetNextResult()

  • New statement handle attribute: OCI_ATTR_IMPLICIT_RESULT_COUNT

  • New OCIStmtPrepare(), OCIStmtPrepare2() mode: OCI_PREP2_IMPL_RESULTS_CLIENT to be used in external procedures

  See "OCI Support for Implicit Results", "OCIStmtGetNextResult()", "Statement Handle Attributes", "OCIStmtPrepare()", and "OCIStmtPrepare2()".

• Support for IDENTITY or auto-increment column includes the new OCI_ATTR_COLUMN_PROPERTIES attribute and its three new flags.

  See "Column Attributes" and Table 6-13.

• Support for 32K VARCHAR2, NVARCHAR2, and RAW data types includes:

  • New APIs: OCIBindByName2(), OCIBindByPos2(), and OCIDefineByPos2()

  • New service context handle attribute: OCI_ATTR_VARTYPE_MAXLEN_COMPAT

  See "OCIBindByName2()", "OCIBindByPos2()", and "OCIDefineByPos2()", and "Service Context Handle Attributes".

• Support for hidden columns includes a new describe handle attribute: OCI_ATTR_SHOW_INVISIBLE_COLUMN, and new column property attribute: OCI_ATTR_INVISIBLE_COL.

  See "Describe Handle Attributes", "OCIDescribeAny()", Table 6-13, and "Describing Each Column to Know Whether It Is an Invisible Column".

• Support for SQL translation feature in Oracle Database. This includes:

  • New language parameter constant OCI_FOREIGN_SYNTAX in OCIStmtPrepare() and OCIStmtPrepare2() calls.

  • New session handle attribute: OCI_ATTR_TRANS_PROFILE_FOREIGN

  See "OCIStmtPrepare()", "OCIStmtPrepare2()", and "User Session Handle Attributes".

• Support for larger row count data types includes a new attribute, OCI_ATTR_UB8_ROW_COUNT, that should be used if the row count values can exceed UB4MAXVAL for the OCI application. If row count exceeds UB4MAXVAL and the application uses OCI_ATTR_ROW_COUNT, calling OCIAttrGet() returns an error.

  See "Using Scrollable Cursors in OCI" and "Statement Handle Attributes".

• Support for setting the lifetime (in seconds) for all the sessions in the pool with the new session pool handle attribute: OCI_ATTR_SPOOL_MAX_LIFETIME_SESSION.

  See "Session Pool Handle Attributes".

• Support for monitoring Database operations includes a new OCI_ATTR_DBOP user session handle attribute.

  See the OCI_ATTR_DBOP attribute in "User Session Handle Attributes", in "Attributes for End-to-End Application Tracing", and in the authinfop parameter of "OCISessionGet()".

Instant Client libraries were reorganized. A new, required library libclntshcore.so was introduced. This new library must be separate from both the data shared library and libclntsh.so.12.1.

See the footnote in Table 1-3.

Native Client (OCI) support for PL/SQL package types and Boolean type as parameters includes:

• Four new typecodes: OCI_TYPECODE_BOOLEAN, OCI_TYPECODE_RECORD, OCI_TYPECODE_ITABLE, and OCI_TYPECODE_PLS_INTEGER

• Three new package enabled APIs: OCITypeByFullName(), OCITypeArrayByFullName(), and OCITypePackage()

• Underlying changes to support complex PL/SQL package types for these existing APIs: OCIObjectNew(), OCITypeCollTypeCode(), OCITypeName(), OCITypeElemTypeCode(), OCIDescribeAny(), OCIBindByName2(), and OCIBindByName(), OCIBindByPos2(), and OCIBindByPos()

• Index by Integer support is added with noted exceptions or notes for these seven existing OCI APIs: OCICollAppend(), OCICollMax(), OCICollGetElemArray(), OCICollMax(), OCIIter*(), OCITableFirst(), and OCITableLast()

• The following OCI_PTYPE_TYPE parameter attribute is enhanced:

  • OCI_PTYPE_PKG has a new attribute OCI_ATTR_LIST_PKG_TYPES

  • OCI_ATTR_TYPECODE has a new value: OCI_TYPECODE_RECORD

  • OCI_ATTR_COLLECTION_TYPECODE has a new value: OCI_TYPECODE_ITABLE

  • OCI_ATTR_LIST_TYPE_ATTRS lists all fields of a package record type

  • OCI_ATTR_PACKAGE_NAME if a package type, then returns a package name.

• The following OCI_PTYPE_TYPE_ATTR parameter attribute is enhanced:

  • OCI_ATTR_TYPECODE supports all PL/SQL types as attributes; in addition, the following new OCI Typecodes can be returned for this attribute: OCI_TYPECODE_BOOLEAN, OCI_TYPECODE_RECORD, OCI_TYPECODE_ITABLE, and OCI_TYPECODE_PLS_INTEGER

  • OCI_ATTR_PACKAGE_NAME if a package type, then returns the package name

• The following OCI_PTYPE_TYPE_COLL parameter attribute is enhanced:

  • OCI_ATTR_TYPECODE supports all PL/SQL types as attributes; in addition, the following new OCI Typecodes can be returned for this attribute: OCI_TYPECODE_BOOLEAN, OCI_TYPECODE_RECORD, OCI_TYPECODE_ITABLE, and OCI_TYPECODE_PLS_INTEGER

  • OCI_ATTR_PACKAGE_NAME if a package type, then returns the package name

See Table 3-10, "OCITypeCode Values and Data Types", Table 3-11, "OCI_TYPECODE to SQLT Mappings".

See "OCITypeByFullName()", "OCITypeArrayByFullName()", and "OCITypePackage()".

See "OCIObjectNew()", "OCIDescribeAny()", "OCIBindByName2()", "OCIBindByName()", "OCIBindByPos2()", and "OCIBindByPos()",.

See "OCI Collection and Iterator Functions" and "OCI Table Functions".

See Table 6-1, "Attributes of All Parameters", Table 6-6, "Attributes of Packages", Table 6-7, "Attributes of Types", and "List Attributes".

Support for Transaction Guard in an HA infrastructure includes:

• A new error handle attribute: OCI_ATTR_ERROR_IS_RECOVERABLE

• A new session handle attribute: OCI_ATTR_LTXID

See "OCI and Transaction Guard", "Error Handle Attributes", and "User Session Handle Attributes".

Support for Pluggable Databases

See "Support for Pluggable Databases".

New and changed OCI XStream features includes:

• Support for XML object relational and binary in XStream includes the following new column_flags parameter flags:

  • OCI_LCR_COLUMN_XML_DIFF that can be used in the following calls: OCILCRRowColumnInfoSet(), OCILCRRowColumnInfoGet(), OCILCRLobInfoSet(), OCILCRLobInfoGet(), OCIXStreamOutChunkReceive(), OCIXStreamInChunkSend()

  • OCI_LCR_COLUMN_OBJECT_DATA that can be used in the following calls: OCIXStreamsOutChunkReceive() and OCIXStreamInChunkSend()

  See "OCILCRRowColumnInfoSet()", "OCILCRRowColumnInfoGet()", "OCILCRLobInfoSet()", "OCILCRLobInfoGet()", "OCIXStreamOutChunkReceive()", and "OCIXStreamInChunkSend()".

• Manageability support for XStream and GoldenGate integration

  Two new functions: OCIXStreamInSessionSet() and OCIXStreamOutSessionSet()

  See "OCIXStreamInSessionSet()" and "OCIXStreamOutSessionSet()" for more information.

Support for two new Direct Path attributes in Oracle Database 12c Release 1 (12.1.0.2) :

• OCI_ATTR_DIRPATH_PGA_LIM

• OCI_ATTR_DIRPATH_SPILL_PASSES

See "Direct Path Context Handle (OCIDirPathCtx) Attributes" for more information.

OCI release 7.3 API

See "Upgrading of Existing OCI Release 7 Applications" for more information.