Comments about O'Reilly Media Perl for Oracle DBAs:

Just downloaded the sample chapter and found in page 11 it refers ODBC as "Oracle DataBase Connectivity". It should be "Open Data Base Connectivity".

Comments about O'Reilly Media Perl for Oracle DBAs:

There are many problems that Perl solves best. There are many problems that Oracle database solves best. The complementary nature of Perl and Oracle provides an efficient and real life solution to many business problems.

This book addresses this synergy and demostrates some of the remarkable linkages between Perl and Oracle. The presentation is not for a beginner in either Perl or Oracle. The presentation aims for DBAs and network administrators.

This book covers a lot of ground and demystifies things like Oracle data dictionary, database maintenance tasks, DBI package, CPAN structure, web-based Oracle monitoring tools, perl-based configuration files, and database monitoring. I highly recommend it.

Comments about O'Reilly Media Perl for Oracle DBAs:

I want to strongly recommend the book "Perl for Oracle DBA" authored by Andy Duncan & Jared Still.

I've been a DBA for around 7 years & have been doing Perl for longer than that. The code and examples in this book will be put to good use here; as soon as I get some time to put them into production. I even learn some new Perl coding techniques.

Comments about O'Reilly Media Perl for Oracle DBAs:

Over time, as we develop systems, cut code, administer data bases and perform myriad other tasks, we tend to build up a 'kit bag' of useful tricks, code snippets and techniques. This book makes a welcome contribution with its numerous code examples and clear explanations.

Although, as the title suggests, this is aimed primarily at Oracle administrators, there is much here for those with more than a passing interest in the rich text-processing language that is Perl.

With library modules also available for Sysbase and MySQL, for example, connections across disparate databases are a simple matter of appropriate API calls.

Indeed, in the excellent appendices, there is a code example showing simultaneous connections to both an Oracle and a MySQL database and how to extract and process data between them using Perl code and embedded SQL. The ability to do this easily and efficiently without resorting to dump and re-loads using ASCII flat files was a small revelation.

With their clear real-world approach, incisive and, often witty, explanations and observations, the enthusiasm of the authors for their subject is clear.

This book is not only a boon to data base administrators but should also prove to be very useful to those who simply want to learn more about the power of Perl.

Comments about O'Reilly Media Perl for Oracle DBAs:

There's no doubt that there are plenty of books for the Oracle DBA covering areas like maintenance, tuning, and backup and recovery strategies. Likewise, Perl books abound. Strangely enough, there's almost nothing on harnessing the power of these two technologies together. Decartes and Bunce's "Perl DBI" goes some of the way, but its focus is on getting Perl to talk to databases in general.

"Perl for Oracle DBAs," however, aims to fill the gap, and is broad-ranging and eclectic in its sweep. It covers the necessary tasks of installing Perl and the database interface, but also shows you how to call Perl from database stored procedures. Oracle::OCI provides a lower-level alternative to the standard DBI interface, and a higher-level option for C coders.

The authors direct the reader to a number of Perl GUI and Web tools that will make the DBA's life easier, but the unique contribution is their own Oracle DBA toolkit. Modules for mundane tasks such as user setup and real-time alert log monitoring are provided. Other contributions include a password server and client, and a repository for database changes and SQL execution plans. And, as with all good Perl code, you can build on top of the toolkit and extend it. This book has much to offer the neophyte and the expert. Highly recommended.

Comments about O'Reilly Media Perl for Oracle DBAs:

At last a book where you can get your teeth into the meat of the text without wading thru rheams of "what perl is" intro chapters when this clearly isn't a perl reference tome!

Armed with the requisite working code I've found the toolkit to be useful! The only question is: who's going to maintain the open-source project?

In addition I found the appendices which cover the perl language to be well thought out and immediate - far easier to digest than the usual turgid programming examples.

Comments about O'Reilly Media Perl for Oracle DBAs:

The Orange color of the O'Reilly Oracle range is starting to dominate my bookshelf now and Perl for Oracle DBAs is a welcome addition.

Although I'd say probably not ideal for a complete Perl beginner (where "Learning Perl" would be a good place to start) any DBA with some knowledge of Perl could save hours on getting up to speed on all the Perl Tools and packages available and finding the one most useful for their needs. There really is a wealth of information here. I can't imagine there is anything on Perl and Oracle that is not in here.

The chapter on Oracle::OCI alone was exactly what I required beforehand - and I can now see dozens of other different ways to do the same project.

Comments about O'Reilly Media Perl for Oracle DBAs:

Ever since I first heard of (and pre-ordered!) this book, I've been anxiously awaiting its arrival. I received it a few days ago and wondered where all the Perl is.

At first glance, I was disappointed that the book does not begin with an introduction to perl. After all, this book is titled 'Perl for Oracle DBA's' and not '3rd Party Perl Applications for Oracle DBAs.' The Perl language has been relegated to an Appendex in the book.

To add further disappointment, I am having difficulty getting examples in the book to run properly.

The first pitfall (thankfully the first example of connecting with DBD::Oracle worked!) was the example on page 69-70. There is no code in step 5. After trying the next example, I was fortunate enough to realize that it was missing a simple MainLoop();. Not too bad but we're only on the second code example in the book.

The next script, WhatIsTheTime.pl (Page 71) wouldn't run until I removed the use strict line-it complained about the line 'my oracleTime;'. I dont remember the reason, but after much frustration and experimentation, I got it to work.

Finally nothing that I (or my co-workers) could do would get Oracle_objects.pl (Page 116-117) to run. Being a Perl rookie, I couldn't figure out why the chart wouldn't come up in my browser. However, in the DDL/DML that allegedly populates the table for bar chart, you create a table called bars with two fields (object_type and object_count), but select barchart from the table, and filter bars by WIDTH, HEIGHT, 3-D, X-ORIENT, and TITLE.

For my $44.95, it's not unreasonable to expect working examples of such a promising technology.

I'm only on page 130 of the book but I am incredibly disappointed. I was looking for an excellent perl tutorial/companion for Oracle DBAs in the same vein as the excellent 'Unix for Oracle DBAs Pocket Reference'. Hopefully a revised version will be release soon, at no cost.

Neil Kodner

Salt Lake City, UT