[gdal-dev] Oracle support available by default in any OSGeo software

[Ivan Lucena]

Nicolas,

If you install QGIS from OSGeo4W you should be able to also install the Libs package "gdal-oracle: OGR OCI and GDAL GeoRaster Plugins for Oracle" with the files gdal_GEOR.dll and ogr_OCI.dll. That is all you need in QGIS.

But if you don't use OSGeo4W you can grab the same files from Tamas Szekeres website (see http://trac.osgeo.org/gdal/wiki/DownloadingGdalBinaries).

>  >  I't very frustrating, each time I would like to use OSGeo software
>  >  (GDAL/OGR, QGIS, ...) they don't support oracle database. Every time,
>  >  everything should be recompiled from source with oracle support enabled. A
>  >  long and not easy process...

I understand your frustration. But note that all GDAL/OGR driver that have dependency should not be incorporated by default into product distribution to avoid annoying "cannot find shared library xxx" messages or any other more serious error. Those driver are build as plugins so that they can be easily added or removed from the path.

>  >  
>  >  The reason usually evoked for this situation, is that Oracle build
>  >  needs Oracle files that aren't freely redistributable. Ok It's a good
>  >  reason.

You can freely download all the necessary files to compile against OCI from oracle.com.

>  >  
>  >  I found a library, called OCILIB (<[LINK:
>  >  http://orclib.sourceforge.net/] http://orclib.sourceforge.net/>), that
>  >  enable your software to dynamically connect to your oracle database. This
>  >  library does not require any oracle library to compile. It's available on
>  >  any platform where oracle client is available and it licensed with LGPL.

The OCILIB library is just a shell around OCI. You still need OCI distribution from a server, client or instant client installation in order to compile or run any code based on that library. 

>  >  But before going further, I would like to know if it seems to you a
>  >  good way to have Oracle support available by default in any OSGeo software

The OSGeo4W and Tamasz packages solutions are working pretty well for Windows users, so far. For QGIS all you have to do is to enable the Oracle Raster driver, is you want to use GeoRaster. Works pretty fast if the image has overviews. Please note that other OSGeo and commercial software can also access Oracle Spatial through GDAL.

>  >  Depending of your answers, I 'll come back to ask you how it's the
>  >  best way to do that ?

I hope that would answer your question.

Regards,

Ivan