| This book is divided into four parts : Part I -
Chapter 1 introduces the Perl language and explains why it is such a helpful language for Oracle database administrators. It also provides an overview of the main components of the Perl/Oracle architecture. -
Chapter 2 describes how to install Perl on Unix and Win32 systems. It also describes how to install Cygwin, a Unix-like development environment you can install on your Win32 machine. Part II -
Chapter 3 describes Perl/Tk, an extensive GUI-based toolkit for Perl, as well as a number of applications that provide Oracle DBAs with graphically oriented tools for performing database administration. These include OraExplain, StatsView, Orac, DDL::Oracle , SchemaDiff, Senora, DBD::Chart , SchemaView-Plus, and a variety of Perl GUI integrated development environments ( IDEs ) and debuggers . -
Chapter 4 discusses the relationship between Perl and the Apache web server, and focuses on two Oracle applications that use a web browser as their user interface: Oracletool and Karma. -
Chapter 5 explains how the use of Apache's mod_perl module can greatly improve the performance of Perl web-based CGI (Common Gateway Interface) scripts used with Oracle. This chapter also covers several related Apache modules: Apache::Registry , Apache::DBI , and Apache::OWA (used to connect mod_perl to Oracle's PL/SQL Web Toolkit). -
Chapter 6 describes two applications, Embperl and Mason, that demonstrate the advantages of embedded scripting, a method that allows Perl code to be embedded within web pages. These tools provide a mechanism for filling your production web pages with dynamic Oracle data and creating your own Oracle web tools, while separating content from design issues. -
Chapter 7 covers Oracle::OCI , a Perl module that provides a more extensive interface to Oracle's Oracle Call Interface (OCI) than is possible with Perl DBI. -
Chapter 8 discusses extproc_perl , a Perl module that communicates with the Oracle PL/SQL language's external procedure C library system (known as EXTPROC). This module and the others described here allow Perl code to be embedded directly in PL/SQL programs. Part III -
Chapter 9 introduces the components of the Perl Database Administration Toolkit (PDBA) and explains how to install it and build the toolkit's password server. -
Chapter 10 describes the toolkit's Perl scripts that help DBAs perform day-to-day administration. We'll cover managing user accounts, maintaining indexes, killing sniped sessions, managing extent usage, and extracting DDL (Data Definition Language) and data. -
Chapter 11 describes the toolkit's Perl scripts that can be used to monitor both the Oracle alert log (containing database error and status messages) and the connectivity of the databases. -
Chapter 12 describes the toolkit's Perl scripts that allow you to build a repository in which to store information about the many changes made to an Oracle database's tables, indexes, roles, schemas, and other objects. -
Chapter 13 provides information that will be helpful if you decide to modify any of the scripts or modules in the toolkit. We'll take a detailed look inside one of the toolkit's scripts and modules and illustrate how you can change it to suit your specific database administration needs. Part IV -
Appendix A summarizes basic Perl syntax, including object-oriented features. -
Appendix B presents the main Perl DBI application programming interface (API) functions. -
Appendix C describes the basics of regular expressions (regexes), patterns of literals and metacharacters used extensively by Perl for pattern matching. -
Appendix D summarizes the Perl data- munging modules that are helpful in formatting and transforming data for data warehouses and other such Oracle applications; it includes sections on numeric, date, conversion, and XML modules. |
