Establishing a Connection

With the CData Cmdlets users can install a data module, set the connection properties, and start scripting. This section provides examples of using our OracleOci Cmdlets with native PowerShell cmdlets, like the CSV import and export cmdlets.

Installing and Connecting

If you have PSGet, installing the cmdlets can be accomplished from the PowerShell Gallery with the following command. You can also obtain a setup from the CData site.

Install-Module OracleOciCmdlets

The following line is then added to your profile, loading the cmdlets on the next session:

Import-Module OracleOciCmdlets;

You can then use the Connect-OracleOci cmdlet to create a connection object that can be passed to other cmdlets:

$conn = Connect-OracleOci -User 'myUser' -Password 'myPassword' -Database 'NorthWind' -Server 'myServer'

Before You Connect

To connect to Oracle, you will first need to update the appropriate environment variable. This variable must contain a folder location that includes the Oracle OCI Library assemblies, which are shipped alongside the cmdlet. The correct environment variable depends upon your platform:

Windows: The native libraries should be on your PATH. Note that the VC++ 2017 Redistributable package is required to load the OCI libraries.
Mac: The native libraries should be on your DYLIB_LIBRARY_PATH.
Linux: The native libraries should be on your LD_LIBRARY_PATH.

These native libraries can be found in the lib folder inside the installation directory of the cmdlet.

Connecting to Oracle OCI

The following connection types are available:

Oracle Server
OracleTNS
LDAP

Oracle Server

After you have added the appropriate libraries to your PATH, set the following to connect:

User: The user Id provided for authentication with the Oracle database.
Password: The password provided for authentication with the Oracle database.
Port: The port used to connect to the server hosting the Oracle database.
ServiceName: The service name of the Oracle database. You can obtain this value by querying global_name (select * from global_name) using the Oracle SQL*PLUS command line.
Server: The host name or IP address of the server hosting the Oracle database.

OracleTNS

Set the following connection properties prior to connecting:

User: The user Id provided for authentication with the Oracle database.
Password: The password provided for authentication with the Oracle database.
DataSource: The Oracle Net Services Name, Connect Descriptor (known also as TNS Connect String), or a connection name that identifies the database to which to connect. You should be able to find these values in your tnsnames.ora file.

For example,

DataSource='(DESCRIPTION=(ADDRESS=(protocol_address_information))(CONNECT_DATA= (SERVICE_NAME=service_name)))'

LDAP

In this scheme, you need to authenticate to the LDAP server. Set the following connection properties to connect:

User: The user Id provided for authentication with the Oracle database.
Password: The password provided for authentication with the Oracle database.
LDAPUri: The LDAP URI used to connect to the LDAP server.
LDAPUser: The User account for LDAP server.
LDAPPassword: The password for the LDAP user.

Your connection string should look similar to this:

LDAPUri=ldap://myldap.com:389/SERVICE_EXMPL,cn=OracleContext,dc=example,dc=com; User=ORACLEUSER; Password=OracleUserPassword;

Note that this connection type requires both your Oracle and LDAP usernames and passwords. Your system administrator may allow anonymous LDAP logins, in which case your LDAP username and password are not needed.

Retrieving Data

After you have created a connection, you can use the other cmdlets to perform operations that you would normally expect to be able to perform against a relational database. The Select-OracleOci cmdlet provides a native PowerShell interface for retrieving data:

$results = Select-OracleOci -Connection $conn -Table ""CData"."SYSTEM".Customers" -Columns @("CompanyName, City") -Where "Country='US'"

The Invoke-OracleOci cmdlet provides an SQL interface. This cmdlet can be used to execute an SQL query via the Query parameter.

Piping Cmdlet Output

The cmdlets return row objects to the pipeline one row at a time. The following line exports results to a CSV file:

Select-OracleOci -Connection $conn -Table "CData"."SYSTEM".Customers -Where "Country = 'US'" | Select -Property * -ExcludeProperty Connection,Table,Columns | Export-Csv -Path c:\my"CData"."SYSTEM".CustomersData.csv -NoTypeInformation

You will notice that we piped the results from Select-OracleOci into a Select-Object cmdlet and excluded some properties before piping them into an Export-CSV cmdlet. We do this because the CData Cmdlets append Connection, Table, and Columns information onto each row object in the result set, and we do not necessarily want that information in our CSV file.

However, this makes it easy to pipe the output of one cmdlet to another. The following is an example of converting a result set to JSON:

 
PS C:\> $conn  = Connect-OracleOci -User 'myUser' -Password 'myPassword' -Database 'NorthWind' -Server 'myServer'
PS C:\> $row = Select-OracleOci -Connection $conn -Table ""CData"."SYSTEM".Customers" -Columns (CompanyName, City) -Where "Country = 'US'" | select -first 1
PS C:\> $row | ConvertTo-Json
{
  "Connection":  {

  },
  "Table":  ""CData"."SYSTEM".Customers",
  "Columns":  [

  ],
  "CompanyName":  "MyCompanyName",
  "City":  "MyCity"
}

Deleting Data

The following line deletes any records that match the criteria:

Select-OracleOci -Connection $conn -Table "CData"."SYSTEM".Customers -Where "Country = 'US'" | Remove-OracleOci

Modifying Data

The cmdlets make data transformation easy as well as data cleansing. The following example loads data from a CSV file into Oracle OCI, checking first whether a record already exists and needs to be updated instead of inserted.

Import-Csv -Path C:\My"CData"."SYSTEM".CustomersUpdates.csv | %{
  $record = Select-OracleOci -Connection $conn -Table "CData"."SYSTEM".Customers -Where ("Id = `'"+$_.Id+"`'")
  if($record){
    Update-OracleOci -Connection $conn -Table "CData"."SYSTEM".Customers -Columns @("CompanyName","City") -Values @($_.CompanyName, $_.City) -Where "Id  = `'$_.Id`'"
  }else{
    Add-OracleOci -Connection $conn -Table "CData"."SYSTEM".Customers -Columns @("CompanyName","City") -Values @($_.CompanyName, $_.City)
  }
}

Cmdlets for Oracle