This preface contains:
The following features are new in this release:
Oracle C Client Interface (OCI) support for the following new and changed features:
Support for row count per iteration for array DML includes:
New mode parameter attribute: OCI_RETURN_ROW_COUNT_ARRAY in the OCIStmtExecute() call
New statement handle attribute: OCI_ATTR_ROW_COUNT_ARRAY
See "OCIStmtExecute()" and "Statement Handle Attributes" for more information.
Support for client side deployment settings. This includes:
New deployment settings oraaccess.xml file
See "OCI Client-Side Deployment Parameters Using oraaccess.xml" for more information.
Change in High Availability infrastructure to use Oracle Notification Service (ONS)
See "HA Event Notification" for more information.
Support for auto-tuning client statement caching. This includes:
New auto-tuning client statement cache feature
New session handle attribute: OCI_ATTR_MAX_OPEN_CURSORS
See "Client Statement Cache Auto-Tuning" and "User Session Handle Attributes" for more information.
Support for implicit results includes:
New API: OCIStmtGetNextResult()
New statement handle attribute: OCI_ATTR_IMPLICIT_RESULT_COUNT
New OCIStmtPrepare(), OCIStmtPrepare2() mode: OCI_PREP2_IMPL_RESULTS_CLIENT to be used in external procedures
See "OCI Support for Implicit Results", "OCIStmtGetNextResult()", "Statement Handle Attributes", "OCIStmtPrepare()", and "OCIStmtPrepare2()".
Support for IDENTITY or auto-increment column includes the new OCI_ATTR_COLUMN_PROPERTIES attribute and its three new flags.
See "Column Attributes" and Table 6-13.
Support for 32K VARCHAR2, NVARCHAR2, and RAW data types includes:
New APIs: OCIBindByName2(), OCIBindByPos2(), and OCIDefineByPos2()
New service context handle attribute: OCI_ATTR_VARTYPE_MAXLEN_COMPAT
See "OCIBindByName2()", "OCIBindByPos2()", and "OCIDefineByPos2()", and "Service Context Handle Attributes".
Support for hidden columns includes a new describe handle attribute: OCI_ATTR_SHOW_INVISIBLE_COLUMN, and new column property attribute: OCI_ATTR_INVISIBLE_COL.
See "Describe Handle Attributes", "OCIDescribeAny()", Table 6-13, and "Describing Each Column to Know Whether It Is an Invisible Column".
Support for SQL translation feature in Oracle Database. This includes:
New language parameter constant OCI_FOREIGN_SYNTAX in OCIStmtPrepare() and OCIStmtPrepare2() calls.
New session handle attribute: OCI_ATTR_TRANS_PROFILE_FOREIGN
See "OCIStmtPrepare()", "OCIStmtPrepare2()", and "User Session Handle Attributes".
Support for larger row count data types includes a new attribute, OCI_ATTR_UB8_ROW_COUNT, that should be used if the row count values can exceed UB4MAXVAL for the OCI application. If row count exceeds UB4MAXVAL and the application uses OCI_ATTR_ROW_COUNT, calling OCIAttrGet() returns an error.
See "About Using Scrollable Cursors in OCI" and "Statement Handle Attributes".
Support for setting the lifetime (in seconds) for all the sessions in the pool with the new session pool handle attribute: OCI_ATTR_SPOOL_MAX_LIFETIME_SESSION.
Support for monitoring Database operations includes a new OCI_ATTR_DBOP user session handle attribute.
See the OCI_ATTR_DBOP attribute in "User Session Handle Attributes", in "Attributes for End-to-End Application Tracing", and in the authinfop parameter of "OCISessionGet()".
Instant Client libraries were reorganized. A new, required library libclntshcore.so was introduced. This new library must be separate from both the data shared library and libclntsh.so.12.1.
See the footnote in Table 1-3.
Native Client (OCI) support for PL/SQL package types and Boolean type as parameters includes:
Four new typecodes: OCI_TYPECODE_BOOLEAN, OCI_TYPECODE_RECORD, OCI_TYPECODE_ITABLE, and OCI_TYPECODE_PLS_INTEGER
Three new package enabled APIs: OCITypeByFullName(), OCITypeArrayByFullName(), and OCITypePackage()
Underlying changes to support complex PL/SQL package types for these existing APIs: OCIObjectNew(), OCITypeCollTypeCode(), OCITypeName(), OCITypeElemTypeCode(), OCIDescribeAny(), OCIBindByName2(), and OCIBindByName(), OCIBindByPos2(), and OCIBindByPos()
Index by Integer support is added with noted exceptions or notes for these seven existing OCI APIs: OCICollAppend(), OCICollMax(), OCICollGetElemArray(), OCICollMax(), OCIIter*(), OCITableFirst(), and OCITableLast()
The following OCI_PTYPE_TYPE parameter attribute is enhanced:
OCI_PTYPE_PKG has a new attribute OCI_ATTR_LIST_PKG_TYPES
OCI_ATTR_TYPECODE has a new value: OCI_TYPECODE_RECORD
OCI_ATTR_COLLECTION_TYPECODE has a new value: OCI_TYPECODE_ITABLE
OCI_ATTR_LIST_TYPE_ATTRS lists all fields of a package record type
OCI_ATTR_PACKAGE_NAME if a package type, then returns a package name.
The following OCI_PTYPE_TYPE_ATTR parameter attribute is enhanced:
OCI_ATTR_TYPECODE supports all PL/SQL types as attributes; in addition, the following new OCI Typecodes can be returned for this attribute: OCI_TYPECODE_BOOLEAN, OCI_TYPECODE_RECORD, OCI_TYPECODE_ITABLE, and OCI_TYPECODE_PLS_INTEGER
OCI_ATTR_PACKAGE_NAME if a package type, then returns the package name
The following OCI_PTYPE_TYPE_COLL parameter attribute is enhanced:
OCI_ATTR_TYPECODE supports all PL/SQL types as attributes; in addition, the following new OCI Typecodes can be returned for this attribute: OCI_TYPECODE_BOOLEAN, OCI_TYPECODE_RECORD, OCI_TYPECODE_ITABLE, and OCI_TYPECODE_PLS_INTEGER
OCI_ATTR_PACKAGE_NAME if a package type, then returns the package name
See Table 3-10, Table 3-11.
See "OCITypeByFullName()", "OCITypeArrayByFullName()", and "OCITypePackage()".
See "OCIObjectNew()", "OCIDescribeAny()", "OCIBindByName2()", "OCIBindByName()", "OCIBindByPos2()", and "OCIBindByPos()",.
See "OCI Collection and Iterator Functions" and "OCI Table Functions".
See Table 6-1, Table 6-6, Table 6-7, and "List Attributes".
Support for Transaction Guard in an HA infrastructure includes:
A new error handle attribute: OCI_ATTR_ERROR_IS_RECOVERABLE
A new session handle attribute: OCI_ATTR_LTXID
See "OCI and Transaction Guard", "Error Handle Attributes", and "User Session Handle Attributes".
Support for Pluggable Databases
New and changed OCI XStream features includes:
Support for XML object relational and binary in XStream includes the following new column_flags parameter flags:
OCI_LCR_COLUMN_XML_DIFF that can be used in the following calls: OCILCRRowColumnInfoSet(), OCILCRRowColumnInfoGet(), OCILCRLobInfoSet(), OCILCRLobInfoGet(), OCIXStreamOutChunkReceive(), OCIXStreamInChunkSend()
OCI_LCR_COLUMN_OBJECT_DATA that can be used in the following calls: OCIXStreamsOutChunkReceive() and OCIXStreamInChunkSend()
See "OCILCRRowColumnInfoSet()", "OCILCRRowColumnInfoGet()", "OCILCRLobInfoSet()", "OCILCRLobInfoGet()", "OCIXStreamOutChunkReceive()", and "OCIXStreamInChunkSend()".
Manageability support for XStream and GoldenGate integration
Two new functions: OCIXStreamInSessionSet() and OCIXStreamOutSessionSet()
See "OCIXStreamInSessionSet() " and "OCIXStreamOutSessionSet() " for more information.
Support for two new Direct Path attributes in Oracle Database 12c Release 1 (12.1.0.2) :
OCI_ATTR_DIRPATH_PGA_LIM
OCI_ATTR_DIRPATH_SPILL_PASSES
See "Direct Path Context Handle (OCIDirPathCtx) Attributes" for more information.
New authentication modes: OCI_SYSBKP for SYSBACKUP access, OCI_SYSDGD for SYSDG access, and OCI_SYSKMT for SYSKM access can be used in the mode parameter for OCISessionBegin(). Though implemented in this current release, these modes were not previously documented.
See OCI Authentication Management and OCISessionBegin() for more information.
The following deprecated features will not be supported in future releases:
OCI release 7.3 API
See "About Upgrading of Existing OCI Release 7 Applications" for more information.