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Connecting R Running on Linux to an Oracale Database Running on Another Server

3 messages · Rick Bilonick, Michael Lapsley, Brian Ripley

Rick Bilonick
# 
I need to access an Oracle database running on another server from my Linux box
running R.

I've downloaded RODBC but I have a sinking feeling I need more things to do this.
I would appreciate any information on how I could do this.

I would also consider other ways of accessing the Oracle database from the Linux
box. I know I can buy and install Oracle8i. I also think I can just install an
Oracl client to access the data on the other machine.

Thanks.

Rick Bilonick

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Michael Lapsley
#
On Tue, Mar 27, 2001 at 10:52:25AM -0500, Richard A. Bilonick wrote:
Yes, it is not easy, although I know of one person who has succeeded (I do not
use oracle myself and have no access to it).

AFAIR you will need unixODBC plus an oracle driver.  There is a beta
driver from www.easysoft.com for which you need a (free) licence.
There is also a freeware driver in development but the version number
is currently very low and I do not think there is much functionality yet.
I think you also need some of the oracle libs.

The idea is that you install unixodbc, install & licence the oracle
driver, then set up a .odbc.ini file with the connection information
in it.  If I remember correctly there is a bug _requiring_ that the 
password appears in the .odbc.ini.

In short, you need to want to do this quite badly, although, as I said,
I do know of one person who succeeded.

PS: as a further complication, there was/is an oracle odbc driver bug
which requires/required a complile flag to be set in RODBC.c as 
a workaround.  If you can get as far as getting a connect we can
deal with that later if it is still necessary.

Michael
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Brian Ripley
#
On Tue, 27 Mar 2001, Michael Lapsley wrote:

            

      
      
      
    

        
No longer, I believe, unles Oracle actaully lies about the number of rows
in a table.  I will shortly need to do this, although may just use Windows
where we have an Oracle ODBC driver.

Good to hear from you, as I at least have had no reply to several emails.
At the Vienna DSC-2001 it was decided to set up a R-dbs Special Interest
Group (mainly an email list) and I hope you will be able to participate.

Meanwhile I have a few bug reports outstanding, and would it help to
re-submit to you the changes I am currently using?

Brian