Python cx_Oracle 6.0b2 has been released to GitHub and PyPI.
Anthony Tuininga has released Python cx_Oracle 6.0b2 with (surprise, surprise) some improvements and fixes.
You can install it from PyPI by using:
python -m pip install cx_Oracle --pre
Without the "--pre" option you will get the current production version cx_Oracle 5.3 instead.
If you are upgrading a previous cx_Oracle installation use:
python -m pip install cx_Oracle --upgrade --pre
The full Release Notes list all the details in this release. What is not so obvious is that cx_Oracle benefits from improvements to the underlying ODPI-C abstraction layer, for example cx_Oracle 6.0b2 now has caching enabled for temporary LOBs, and now has support for getting/setting attributes of objects or element values in collections that contain LOBs, BINARY_FLOAT values, BINARY_DOUBLE values and NCHAR and NVARCHAR2 values.
Anthony is hoping to head to the Release Candidate phase soon, so please continue to give us feedback.
Don't forget that with cx_Oracle 6, you no longer need an Oracle client during installation - you only need it at runtime.