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PHP PL/SQL Function Return

with 5 comments

Somebody wanted an example of how to capture the return value of a PL/SQL function in a PHP script running against the Oracle Database. The trick is embedding the call inside an anonymous block program unit, like a prior example that I posted on handling an OUT mode variable in a PL/SQL Procedure.

Here’s the sample PHP code:

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<?php
  // Attempt to connect to your database.
  $c = @oci_connect("student", "student", "localhost/orcl");
  if (!$c) {
    print "Sorry! The connection to the database failed. Please try again later.";
    die();
  }
  else {
    // Initialize incoming message whether or not parameter sent.
    $msg_in = (isset($_GET['msg'])) ? $_GET['msg'] : "Cat got your keyboard?";
 
    // Set the call statement, like a SQL statement.
    $sql = "BEGIN :b := echo(:a); END;";
 
    // Prepare the statement and bind the two strings.
    $stmt = oci_parse($c,$sql);
 
    // Bind local variables into PHP statement, you MUST size OUT only variables.
    oci_bind_by_name($stmt, ":a", $msg_in);
    oci_bind_by_name($stmt, ":b", $msg_out, 80, SQLT_CHR);
 
    // Execute it and print success or failure message.
    if (oci_execute($stmt)) {
      print $msg_out;
    }
    else {
      print "Sorry, I can't do that Dave...";
    }
 
    // Free resources.
    oci_free_statement($stmt);
    oci_close($c);
  }
?>

As noted by Chris, you should size input parameters too. It could be qualified as a best practice when code re-executes with different values without rebinding.

It depends on this echo function:

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CREATE OR REPLACE FUNCTION echo
( message IN     VARCHAR2 ) RETURN VARCHAR2 IS
BEGIN
  RETURN 'Message ['||message||'] received.';
END;
/

Hope that this is what they needed, or you’re looking for as an answer to a search.

Written by maclochlainn

May 28th, 2013 at 12:36 pm

Posted in OPAL,Oracle,Oracle 11g,PHP

PHP DB Connection Class

without comments

PHP namespaces are new to PHP 5.3 (2012), but PHP class files have been around since PHP 5 was introduced. However, a couple students had problems creating working code from the many fragments published else where. Here’s my attempt to qualify it in a single post, running Zend Server Community Edition 6 and Oracle Database 11g.

The first thing you need to understand is a namespace. Namespaces exist to disambiguate (tell the difference between) class files that share the same name. After all, there are only so many obvious things to call class files. 😉 You can put classes, interfaces, functions, and constants in namespaces.

Let’s say you qualify your namespace as:

namespace Oracle\Db;

You would make that the first thing in a PHP file, and shouldn’t include any HTML. You would then use a require(), require_once(), include(), or include_once() to add the class to a PHP file that uses the namespace qualified file. Then, you would construct a new instance of your PHP class. Together, these two steps would look like this:

  require_once('Db.php');
  $db = new \Oracle\Db\Db("Test Example","Author");

Notice the back slash in front of the Oracle namespace, and then you provide the namespace qualified file name (minus the file extension) and the class name. Since the namespace qualified file name and class name are the same, you see the double Db.

Here is a basic (starter) Oracle database connection class file, which you should store as Db.php in the Apache’s htdocs\Oracle directory:

<?php
/* Declare a namespace, available from PHP 5.3 forward. */
namespace Oracle\Db;
 
/* Create a Database Connection class. */
class Db {
 
  /* Declare class variables. */
  protected $conn = null;
  protected $stmt = null;
  protected $prefetch = 100;
 
  /* Declare the default construction function. */
  function __construct($module, $cid) {
 
    // Construct a connection and suppress errors and warnings.    
    $this->conn = @oci_connect(SCHEMA, PASSWD, TNS_ID, CHARSET);
 
    // Check for a connection, and process the work.
    if (!$this->conn) {
      // Assign Oracle error message.
      $msg = oci_error();
 
      /* The \ preceding Exception is necessary because of the
         introduction of namespaces in PHP 5.3. Without it, the
         program would attempt to call \Oracle\Exception rather
         than our little runtime example. */
      throw new \Exception('Cannot connect to database: '.$msg['message']);
    }
 
    /* Set Oracle Call Interface parameters.
     * =========================================================
     *  - The oci_set_client_info() function replaces a call
     *    to the DBMS_APPLICATION_INFO package, and much more
     *    efficient.
     *  - The oci_set_module_name() function allows you to 
     *    register the function name that calls the Db class.
     *  - The oci_set_client_identifier() function and you 
     *    use it with DBMS_MONITOR.CLIENT_ID_TRACE_ENABLE,
     *    which can be enabled with a call to the 
     *    DBMS_MONITOR.SERV_MOD_ACT_STAT_ENABLE.     
     * =========================================================
     */
    oci_set_client_info($this->conn, "Administrator");
    oci_set_module_name($this->conn, $module);
    oci_set_client_identifier($this->conn, $cid);
  }
 
  /* Declare execute function. */  
  public function execute($sql, $action, $bindvars = array()) {
 
    // Parse statement.
    $this->stmt = oci_parse($this->conn, $sql);
 
    // Check for a prefetch value greater than zero.
    if ($this->prefetch >= 0) {
      oci_set_prefetch($this->stmt, $this->prefetch);
    }
 
    // Read the list of bind variables and bind them.
    foreach ($bindvars as $bv) {
      oci_bind_by_name($this->stmt, $bv[0], $bv[1], $bv[2]);
    }
 
    // Set the action name for Oracle tracing and execute statement.
    oci_set_action($this->conn, $action);
 
    // Set to auto commit.
    oci_execute($this->stmt);
  }
 
  /* Declare function that fetches all. */
  public function execFetchAll($sql, $action, $bindvars = array()) {
    $this->execute($sql, $action, $bindvars);
    oci_fetch_all($this->stmt, $res, 0, -1, OCI_FETCHSTATEMENT_BY_ROW);
 
    // Free statement resources.
    $this->stmt = null;
    return($res);
  }
 
  /* Declare the default destructor function. */
  function __destruct() {
    if ($this->stmt)
      oci_free_statement($this->stmt);
    if ($this->conn)
      oci_close($this->conn);
  }
}
?>

Here is a credential file for Oracle, where the network SID is orcl (change orcl to xe when using the Oracle Express Edition):

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<?php
  // Connection variables.
  define('SCHEMA',"student");
  define('PASSWD',"student");
  define('TNS_ID',"localhost/orcl");
  define('CHARSET',"AL32UTF8");
?>

If you do not know your the character set of your database, you can find it by logging in as the SYSTEM user, and running this query:

SELECT VALUE$ FROM sys.props$ WHERE name = 'NLS_CHARACTERSET';

Here’s the test program for the database connection class, save it as TestDb.php in your Apache’s htdocs\Oracle directory:

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<?php
  // Require once the namespace identified class and credentials files.
  require_once('Db.php');
  require_once('credentials.php');
 
   // Process the input parameter, which REALLY should be through a $_POST argument.
  (isset($_GET['last_name'])) ? $input = $_GET['last_name'] : $input = '';
 
  /* Establish new connection.
   * ======================================================
   *  The namespace (PHP 5.3) is set in Db.php as follows:
   *    namespace Oracle\Db;
   *
   *  The namespace syntax needs to qualify the following
   *  when you call it:
   *  - A \ (back slash) before the namespace.
   *  - The file name but not the file extension.
   *  - The class name from the Db.php file.
   */
  $db = new \Oracle\Db\Db("Test Example","Author");
 
  // Assign query.
  $sql = "SELECT * FROM contact c WHERE c.last_name = :bv";
 
  // Assign fetch to a result array.
  $result = $db->execFetchAll($sql, "Query Example", array(array(":bv", $input, -1)));
 
  // Open table and provide headers.
  print "<table border='1'>\n";
  print "<tr><th>First Name</th><th>Last Name</th></tr>\n";
 
  // Iterate through the rows.
  foreach ($result as $row) {
    $fname = htmlspecialchars($row['FIRST_NAME'], ENT_NOQUOTES, 'UTF-8');
    $lname = htmlspecialchars($row['LAST_NAME'], ENT_NOQUOTES, 'UTF-8');
    print "<tr><td>$fname</td><td>$lname</td></tr>\n";
  }
 
  // Close the table.
  print "</table>";
?>

If you get the call to the namespace wrong, you’ll get a strange set of errors. Just make sure you understand the differences between declaring a namespace and calling a namespace.

You test the database connection class with the following URL on your localhost (substitute a server name if it’s not a development environment), provided you’ve created a table contact with a row where the last_name equals 'Sweeney':

http://localhost/Oracle/TestDb.php?last_name=Sweeney

The following creates and seeds the contact table:

CREATE TABLE contact
( contact_id  NUMBER
, first_name  VARCHAR2(10)
, last_name   VARCHAR2(10));
INSERT INTO contact VALUES (1,'Meghan','Sweeney');
INSERT INTO contact VALUES (2,'Matthew','Sweeney');
INSERT INTO contact VALUES (3,'Ian','Sweeney');

Written by maclochlainn

May 23rd, 2013 at 11:25 pm

Posted in OPAL,Oracle,Oracle 11g,PHP

Tagged with ,

MySQL Book in Chinese

without comments

MySQL_JohnSinOne of my old students and lab assistants stopped by to show his fiancée the BYU-Idaho campus. It was a long trip since he lives in Macao, China.

He kindly brought me a copy of my Oracle Database 11g and MySQL 5.6 Developer Handbook in simplified Chinese. He’s holding it in the photo.

That makes three books translated into Chinese, which made my day. It’ll be interesting to see if the new MySQL Workbench: Data Modeling & Development book gets translated into Chinese too. Oddly, I never hear about this from the publisher first.

The cover emphasized only the Dolphin, not the Oracle logo material. It made me wonder, how many MySQL users there might be in China. If anybody from China catches the post, it would be great to hear about the MySQL Community in China.

Likewise, if anybody in China catches the post and reads the book, please let me know if you liked it. 😉 Naturally, let me know if you found any problems with it too. By the way, I keep an errata for the book here.

Written by maclochlainn

May 23rd, 2013 at 9:58 pm

Posted in LAMP,MySQL,Oracle

Tagged with ,

Zend 6 & Timezones

with one comment

Just went through all my PHP testing against a fresh instance of Oracle with Zend Server Community Edition 6, and found these warnings, guess that’s pretty clean for the Oracle part of the installation. I didn’t notice it before because generally I do most of my PHP development against a MySQL database. I should have been configuring the php.ini file routinely, as qualified in this PHP forum discussion.

Warning: oci_set_client_info(): It is not safe to rely on the system's timezone settings. You are *required* to use the date.timezone setting or the date_default_timezone_set() function. In case you used any of those methods and you are still getting this warning, you most likely misspelled the timezone identifier. We selected the timezone 'UTC' for now, but please set date.timezone to select your timezone. in C:\Program Files (x86)\Zend\Apache2\htdocs\Oracle\Db.php on line 47
Warning: oci_set_module_name(): It is not safe to rely on the system's timezone settings. You are *required* to use the date.timezone setting or the date_default_timezone_set() function. In case you used any of those methods and you are still getting this warning, you most likely misspelled the timezone identifier. We selected the timezone 'UTC' for now, but please set date.timezone to select your timezone. in C:\Program Files (x86)\Zend\Apache2\htdocs\Oracle\Db.php on line 48
Warning: oci_set_action(): It is not safe to rely on the system's timezone settings. You are *required* to use the date.timezone setting or the date_default_timezone_set() function. In case you used any of those methods and you are still getting this warning, you most likely misspelled the timezone identifier. We selected the timezone 'UTC' for now, but please set date.timezone to select your timezone. in C:\Program Files (x86)\Zend\Apache2\htdocs\Oracle\Db.php on line 69

Turns out Zend 6 doesn’t automatically set the [Date] elements in the php.ini file, which is required for the oci_set_client_info(), oci_set_module_name(), and oci_set_action() functions of the OCI. You can find the php.ini file in the C:\Program Files (x86)\Zend\ZendServer\etc folder on Windows:

[Date]
; Defines the default timezone used by the date functions
; http://php.net/date.timezone
;date.timezone =
 
; http://php.net/date.default-latitude
;date.default_latitude = 31.7667
 
; http://php.net/date.default-longitude
;date.default_longitude = 35.2333
 
; http://php.net/date.sunrise-zenith
;date.sunrise_zenith = 90.583333
 
; http://php.net/date.sunset-zenith
;date.sunset_zenith = 90.583333

You can find the values for date.timezone here. Update the date.timezone as follows:

date.timezone = America/Denver

Then, reboot the Zend Server, and it fixes the warning messages.

Written by maclochlainn

May 23rd, 2013 at 11:21 am

Posted in LAMP,MySQL,OPAL,Oracle,Oracle 11g,Oracle 12c,PHP