Perl for Oracle DBAs

02/20/2012 · No Responses

Perl is a very powerful tool for Oracle database administrators, but too few DBAs realize how helpful Perl can be in managing, monitoring, and tuning Oracle databases. Whether you’re responsible for Oracle9i, Oracle8i, or earlier databases, you’ll find Perl an invaluable addition to your database administration arsenal.

You don’t need to be a Perl expert to use the excellent applications and scripts described in Perl for Oracle DBAs. The book explains what you need to know about Perl, provides a wealth of ready-to-use scripts developed especially for Oracle DBAs, and suggests many resources for further exploration. The book covers:

The Perl language — an introduction to Perl, its rich history and culture, and its extensive text processing and data transformation capabilities.
The Perl/Oracle architecture — Detailed information about Perl DBI, DBD::Oracle, the Oracle Call Interface (OCI), Oracle::OCI, extproc_perl, and mod_perl, the modules that allow Perl programs to communicate with Oracle databases.
Perl applications for Oracle DBAs — Profiles of the best Perl open source applications available for use and customization by Oracle DBAs: Perl/Tk, OraExplain, StatsView, Orac, DDL::Oracle, SchemaDiff, Senora, DBD::Chart, SchemaView-Plus, Oracletool, Karma, Embperl, and Mason.
The Perl Database Administration (PDBA) Toolkit — a comprehensive suite of specialized, ready-to-use scripts designed to help Oracle DBAs perform both routine and special-purpose administrative tasks: monitoring the Oracle alert log and databases, creating and managing Oracle user accounts, maintaining indexes and extents, extracting DDL and data, troubleshooting and tuning database problems, and much more.

The book also explains how Oracle DBAs and developers can extend the toolkit and solve their own database administration problems using Perl.

Table of Contents
Part I: Introducing Perl for Oracle
Chapter 1. Perl Meets Oracle
Chapter 2. Installing Perl

Part II: Extending Perl
Chapter 3. Perl GUI Extensions
Chapter 4. Perl Web Extensions
Chapter 5. Embedding Perl into Apache with mod_perl
Chapter 6. Embedded Perl Web Scripting
Chapter 7. Invoking the Oracle Call Interface with Oracle::OCI
Chapter 8. Embedding Perl into PL/SQL

Part III: The Perl DBA Toolkit
Chapter 9. Installing the PDBA Toolkit
Chapter 10. Performing Routine DBA Tasks with the PDBA Toolkit
Chapter 11. Monitoring the Database with the PDBA Toolkit
Chapter 12. Building a Database Repository with the PDBA Toolkit
Chapter 13. Extending the PDBA Toolkit

Part IV: Appendixes
Appendix A. The Essential Guide to Perl
Appendix B. The Essential Guide to Perl DBI
Appendix C. The Essential Guide to Regular Expressions
Appendix D. The Essential Guide to Perl Data Munging