RE: [Openinteract-help] OI fruit example problem

[Ben A. <be...@th...>]

Chris,

thanks for the quick response again.


> 
> BTW: Can you tell me the difference between 'varchar' and 
> 'varchar2' in
> Oracle? Why did they use this datatype when every other database I've
> used has found 'varchar' sufficient for their needs?

varchar is an ANSI standard, which Oracle's datatype doesn't _exactly_
match. to quote from my Oracle Bible, 'Mastering Oracle 8i' by R. Freeman:
currently, VARCHAR is synonymous with VARCHAR2. However, in future releases
of PL/SQL, to accommodate emerging SQL standards, VARCHAR might become a
separate datatype with different comparison semantics. So, it is a good idea
so use VARCHAR2 rather than VARCHAR.

I'm no expert, but feel free to throw any Oracle questions my way, and I'll
see what I can do.


> 
> >       Data: 
> >         * Error: Cannot create SPOPS object!
> >       Basic: DBD::Oracle::db prepare failed: ORA-00942:
> >       table or view does not exist (DBD ERROR:
> >       OCIStmtExecute/Describe) at
> >       /usr/local/lib/perl5/site_perl/5.6.1/SPOPS/SQLInterfa
> >       ce.pm line 116.
> >       
> >       Error: DBD::Oracle::db prepare failed: ORA-00942:
> >       table or view does not exist (DBD ERROR:
> >       OCIStmtExecute/Describe) at
> >       /usr/local/lib/perl5/site_perl/5.6.1/SPOPS/SQLInterfa
> >       ce.pm line 116.
> 
> This is the third error. I'd guess that maybe oracle expects 
> a different
> table name? Does oracle use a user.table or schema.table syntax for
> referring to tables in a INSERT/SELECT fashion?
> 
> What happens when you do a table descriptor operation in SQL-Plus?
> (Sorry for the inexact terminology, I'm not familiar with Oracle at
> all.) Do you see the 'fruit' table? What happens if you try to insert
> values to the 'fruit' table from the SQL-Plus tool?
> 
SQL*Plus is a command line SQL and PL/SQL language interface and reporting
tool, which allows SQL statements, PL/SQL (Procedural Language extension to
SQL), and also SQL*Plus interface control commands.
For this case, you can assume I'm only using it to run standard SQL
statements.
You can run any SELECT, INSERT SQL commands through it, just as - I imagine
- with other databases.

The Oracle errors above have occurred where a SELECT, INSERT etc statement
has been called on a table which doesn't exist in the database.

Do you know what SQL the 'oi_manage [...] install_sql' command is attempting
to run here?



> > What is the 'page' object it is trying to access in the 
> database? Where does
> > it get this from?
> 
> First error explained: This probably means you haven't run install_sql
> for all the other packages. When OI starts up it tries to dynamically
> find the fields in a number of tables, one of which is the 
> 'page' table.
> 
> However, if you do run 'install_sql' for the other packages you might
> run into the same issue.
> 
yep, trying to run oi_manage [...] install_sql for the page package also
gives me the following error:

WARNING executing manipulate_configuration for test_cares::Page
Cannot discover fields
 -> SELECT * FROM page WHERE 1 = 0
 -> DBD::Oracle::db prepare failed: ORA-00942: table or view does not exist
(DBD ERROR: OCIStmtExecute/Describe) at
/usr/local/lib/perl5/site_perl/5.6.1/OpenInteract/SPOPS/DBI.pm line 56.

this seems a circular problem! does the OI Developer's Guide fruit example
run exactly as given on other DBs? or am I supposed to install these other
packages as well?
how do other DB-based systems avoid this problem? does running oi_manage
start up OI? and if not, why does it looks for the page table, among others?

has anyone else shared similar setup difficulties?


----------------------------------------------
Ben Avery, 	Analyst/Programmer,   YouthNet UK