How to run SQL from OMB+

Question

For any of you who wanted to be able to query the database from OMB+ in order to gather object metadata or whatever as part of your deployment scripts, you have no doubt noticed (to your frustration) that this functionality is not provided.
Sure, you can trigger execution of a sql/plus script as an external process, but that's hardly interactive now is it?
the good news is that OMB+ DOES provide access to the standard java package, which of course means that you can utilize the standard java.sql classes, which means - JDBC.
Here is a very simple starting point for you that provides simple connect, disconnect, and run query abilities. There is no exception handling and you'd need to add other functionality to execute prepared statements like procedure calls, or do DML like insert/update statement.
Still, I hope that you find it of use as a starting point - if you need it. For documentation on the java.sql interfaces, go to the Sun Java Docs page at: http://java.sun.com/j2se/1.3/docs/api/ and scroll down to the java.sql package in the top left pane.
Cheers,
Mike
package require java
proc oracleConnect { serverName databaseName portNumber username password } {
   # import required classes
   java::import java.sql.Connection
   java::import java.sql.DriverManager
   java::import java.sql.ResultSet
   java::import java.sql.SQLWarning
   java::import java.sql.Statement
   java::import java.sql.ResultSetMetaData
   java::import java.sql.DatabaseMetaData
   java::import oracle.jdbc.OracleDatabaseMetaData
   # load database driver .
   java::call Class forName oracle.jdbc.OracleDriver
   # set the connection url.
   append url jdbc:oracle:thin
   append url :
   append url $username
   append url /
   append url $password
   append url "@"
   append url $serverName
   append url :
   append url $portNumber
   append url :
   append url $databaseName
   set oraConnection [ java::call DriverManager getConnection $url ]
   set oraDatabaseMetaData [ $oraConnection getMetaData ]
   set oraDatabaseVersion [ $oraDatabaseMetaData getDatabaseProductVersion ]
   puts "Connected to: $url"
   puts "$oraDatabaseVersion"
   return $oraConnection
proc oracleDisconnect { oraConnect } {
  $oraConnect close
proc oraJDBCType { oraType } {
  #translation of JDBC types as defined in XOPEN interface
  set rv "NUMBER"
  switch $oraType {
     "0" {set rv "NULL"}
     "1" {set rv "CHAR"}
     "2" {set rv "NUMBER"}
     "3" {set rv "DECIMAL"}
     "4" {set rv "INTEGER"}
     "5" {set rv "SMALLINT"}
     "6" {set rv "FLOAT"}
     "7" {set rv "REAL"}
     "8" {set rv "DOUBLE"}
     "12" {set rv "VARCHAR"}
     "16" {set rv "BOOLEAN"}
     "91" {set rv "DATE"}
     "92" {set rv "TIME"}
     "93" {set rv "TIMESTAMP"}
     default {set rv "OBJECT"}
  return $rv
proc oracleQuery { oraConnect oraQuery } {
   set oraStatement [ $oraConnect createStatement ]
   set oraResults [ $oraStatement executeQuery $oraQuery ]
   # The following metadata dump is not required, but will be a helpfull sort of thing
   # if ever want to really build an abstraction layer
   set oraResultsMetaData [ $oraResults getMetaData ]
   set columnCount        [ $oraResultsMetaData getColumnCount ]
   set i 1
   puts "ResultSet Metadata:"
   while { $i <= $columnCount} {
      set fname [ $oraResultsMetaData getColumnName $i]
      set ftype [oraJDBCType [ $oraResultsMetaData getColumnType $i]]
      puts "Output Field $i Name: $fname Type: $ftype"
      incr i
   # end of metadata dump
   return $oraResults
#now to run a quick query and dump the results.
set oraConn [oracleConnect myserver orcl 1555 scott tiger ]
set oraRs [oracleQuery $oraConn "select name, count(*) numlines from user_source group by name" ]
#for each row in the result set
while {[$oraRs next]} {
  #grab the field values
  set procName [$oraRs getString name]
  set procCount [$oraRs getInt numlines]
  puts "Program unit $procName comprises $procCount lines"
$oraRs close
$oraConn close

Answer 1

Oracle may indeed have used OraTCL as the starting point for OMB+, but if so then they have clearly wrapped their own interface around it and hidden the original commands. Now, I suppose that it should be possible to add OraTcl as an external library, however the Oratcl distribution makes use of the TCL "load" command to load their binaries.
You will quickly find that Oracle has also disabled the standard TCL "load" command in OMB+, thus making very difficult to add third-party plug-in packages.
If you can find a pure-TCL script db interface similar to OraTcl to manage SQL*Plus connections that doesn't use any of the TCL commands that ORacle has disabled - well then you could probably get those to load as packages.
Or, like me, you could just use the supplied java interface and code your own as needed.
Cheers,
Mike