python, DCOracle or other, Oracle client, RedHat 7.0?

[root]

Dear Ari,

You've got this all correct, however even though things aren't guaranteed
to work,
they might anyway.

The method for installing oracle client libraries on linux goes something
like this.
    download and extract the oracle client libraries
    fiddle with the makefile to compile on your platform
    compile and install, setting a bunch of envrionment variables in
/etc/profile
    Install DCOracle, test it by typing a few lines in the python
interpreter.
    You will need to "source /etc/profile" every time it changes unless
you reboot.
    Rebooting at this stage is one convenient way to make sure all your
scripts
    will have access to the oracle environment variables in /etc/profile.

Installing Oracle client libraries is too annoying for me to deal with so
I run
production scripts on a linux box maintained by our oracle wizzared and
I do all my development locally with mysql.  The nice thing about python
is that you only have to pick which database at connect-time.
The rest of my code is database agnostic!

    -pehr


Ari Davidow wrote:

>   I feel caught between the bizarre and the improbable, and it's all
>  probably true.
>
>  I have a python program that wants to do some fairly simply stuff
>  with an Oracle database--the basics: "select" and "insert". That's
>  as much SQL as I almost know, anyway.
>
>  So, to run this program from my NT machine, I had to install Oracle
>  client, and then an ODBC module. That's more code than my program,
>  itself, uses.
>
>  Now, I want to move this code to a Linux box. This particular box
>  uses RedHat 7.0, because that's what our sysadmins think they'd
>  like to learn. There's no Oracle ODBC drivers, but that's okay,
>  I guess, because now I'm in an environment where I can compile
>  the DCOracle module that will talk directly to Oracle. Except that,
>  apparently, this still means that I need an Oracle client for
>  Linux, for this particular version of Linux, with an apparently
>  variant glibc.... I'm not finding any info at all on the Oracle
>  technet website. Neither is our dba. Does anyone have any idea
>  if there is recourse here?
>
>  I guess, the question boil down to: do I really need an Oracle
>  client, and if so, where do I go to see what is available, much less,
>  to get one. And maybe, "has anyone solved this problem more sanely?
>  Since my code isn't on the same computer as the database (and, we
>  thought, really doesn't want to be) are we wrong--should I still
>  this on the same computer where the Oracle db is running. Or, since
>  I need to talk to two separate dbs, on both?
>
> --
> Ari Davidow
> ari at ivritype.com
>
> Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/
> Before you buy.