Java Programming with Oracle JDBC

Wait for the Cure

One way of solving a problem is to simply wait for the cure. With each new release of Oracle’s JDBC drivers, new features are added. Functionality you desire may not yet exist, but it may arrive in the near future. So let’s look at useful features you’ll find in Oracle8i 8.1.7 and Oracle9i.

Oracle8i Release 3 (Version 8.1.7) Features

With Release 3 of Oracle8i, several new features have been added to Oracle’s JDBC support. Here’s a short list showing some of the more important ones:

Statement caching

SQL statements are cached to prevent the overhead of repeated cursor creation.

Access to scalar-based PL/SQL tables

You can now pass PL/SQL tables created with scalar data types as OUT parameters in stored procedures.

Complete XA support

XA Recover and XA Forget methods are implemented.

Fixed wait scheme for connection caching

This new scheme makes a requestor wait indefinitely if the maximum limit has been reached for a connection pool.

Thin driver 56-bit Encryption

The Thin driver now supports 56-bit encryption.

Oracle9i Features

Oracle8i Release 3 is the last update to Oracle8i. Oracle9i is just out, with improvements to object-relational SQL that allow you to move your application’s object model into the database. Here’s a short list of Oracle9i’s more important enhancements and new features:

Support for Unicode with NCHAR datatypes

JDBC drivers can measure strings the same way users do, using UCS-2 semantics. The NCHAR types are redefined to hold Unicode data.

Support for object ...