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Author Profile

Christopher Jones
Senior Principal Product Manager

Christopher is a Senior Principal Product Manager working with the Oracle Database Data Access team primarily on APIs for scripting languages including Node.js, Python, PHP and the newly launched ODPI-C library for Oracle Database driver writers.  He has responsibilities for Oracle Call Interface (OCI) and related Oracle Database APIs; for Oracle Database clients such as Oracle Instant Client; and for general database adoption by developers, including championing Oracle Database XE.  He remains a lead maintainer of PHP's OCI8 extension for Oracle Database.  He co-released the popular book "The Underground PHP and Oracle Manual" and is the author of a number of technical articles.  Christopher has presented at big and small conferences around the world including the O'Reilly Open Source Convention and Oracle OpenWorld.  

Twitter: @ghrd

Email: christopher.jones@oracle.com

Blog: http://blogs.oracle.com/opal/

Recent Posts by Christopher Jones

Python cx_Oracle 7.1's Connection Fix-up Callback Improves Application Scalability

    cx_Oracle 7.1, the extremely popular Oracle Database interface for Python, is now Production on PyPI.   Another great release of cx_Oracle is available from PyPI, this time with a focus on session pooling. There were also a number of incremental improvements and fixes, all detailed in the release notes. Session Pooling When applications use a lot of connections for short periods, Oracle recommends using a session pool for efficiency. The session pool is a pool of connections...

Use node-oracledb 3.1's connection tagging to efficiently set session state

Release announcement: The latest version of node-oracledb, the Node.js module for accessing Oracle Database, is on npm. Top features: Connection tagging; New-connection callback; Explicit session drop; Multi-binary install; Deferred Oracle Client library initialization.     This release of node-oracledb has features to make installation and configuration easier, and for working with pooled connections more efficiently. The highlights are below, but check the CHANGELOGfor all...

ODPI-C 3.1 is Available

Release 3.1 of Oracle Database Programming Interface for C (ODPI-C) is now available on GitHub.  ODPI-C is an open source library of C code that simplifies access to Oracle Database for applications written in C or C++. Top features: Multi-property Session Tags The ODPI-C 3.1 release introduces some small enhancements and corrects a number of small issues that were discovered over the past few months. The main change is support for Oracle Call Interface 12.2's multi-property...

Node-oracledb Connection Samples: Proxies and External Authentication

We recently reviewed 'external authentication' and 'proxy connections' support in node-oracledb and did a few tweaks that will appear in the future node-oracledb 3.1. You can use 'external authentication' to connect without requiring a password being stored in your Node.js applications. This is useful, for example, to authenticate via LDAP or use an Oracle Wallet. The idea of a proxy connection is to create a schema in one database user name. Privilege is granted on that schema...

Historical Links for Oracle Net Services aka SQL*Net

Sometime you just have to do a cleanup but it seems a waste not to keep information that may still be valuable for the historical record. This is one such time. Here are some of the older resources about Oracle Net Services, aka SQL*Net taken from a web page that is about to be revamped. Of course, if you want current information, visit the Oracle Net Service page, the Net Services Net Services Reference, or the latest Net Services Adminstrator's Guide. Overview Oracle Net...

ODPI-C: A Light Weight Driver for Oracle Database

This is a guest post by Oracle’s Vaddeti Karthik Raju, a contributor to the ODPI-C project. What is ODPI-C ? Oracle Database Programming Interface for C (ODPI-C) is an open source library of C code that simplifies the use of common Oracle Call Interface (OCI) features for Oracle Database drivers and user applications which are written in C or C++. It is a wrapper over Oracle Call Interface (OCI) that makes applications and language interfaces easier to develop. For complete...

PHP OCI8 2.2.0 has database call timeouts

Hot on the heels of PHP 7.3 being released, I've just pushed PHP OCI8 2.2.0 to PECL. This release will install on PHP 7.0 to 7.3 One new feature available when OCI8 is compiled with Oracle Client 18c libraries is a database call timeout. A new oci_set_call_timeout() function is available. This will interrupt long running calls to the database, allowing better control over application behavior. Install with 'pecl install oci8'. Note that currently the Windows builds are not using...

"Python and Oracle Database on the Table" Conference Recording

Anthony Tuininga's recent Oracle Code One conference session on Python cx_Oracle best practices was recorded and is available on YouTube: The slides are here. cx_Oracle References Home page: oracle.github.io/python-cx_Oracle/index.html Installation instructions: cx-oracle.readthedocs.io/en/latest/installation.html Documentation: cx-oracle.readthedocs.io/en/latest/index.html Release Notes: cx-oracle.readthedocs.io/en/latest/releasenotes.html Source Code Repository: github.com/oracle/...

Oracle Instant Client-based Middle Tiers Such As Docker Without a Click-through

The Oracle Linux group is pushing forward hard and their latest news is that Instant Client RPMs for Oracle Linux are downloadable for Oracle Linux 7 and Oracle Linux 6 without needing a click-through. This means you can now more easily provision systems using an automated install process. Sergio's blog post has the announcement and steps to use the packages. Our Instant Client 18.3 Dockerfile has also been updated. As you'd expect, 'docker build' now does the download and...