RoR, Oracle, sqlplus and life

Update: Read this if you want to use Oracle 10g Express edition on Linux 64 bit White box


This took me some time to find, so I will document it for everyone's benefit.

At work, I needed to use an Oracle database for my RoR apps.

Here is a quick summary of steps to install the Ruby oci driver etc:

1. First download Oracle Instantclient and install it to say /opt/oracle/10.2.0.3
   This makes connecting to Oracle a snap. Very useful indeed.
   
   
2. 
   setenv LD_LIBRARY_PATH /opt/oracle/10.2.0.3
   setenv ORACLE_HOME /opt/oracle/10.2.0.3
   setenv NLS_LANG AMERICAN_AMERICA.UTF8
   
   # install oci driver
   wget http://rubyforge.org/frs/download.php/22320/ruby-oci8-1.0.0-rc3.tar.gz
   tar xvzf ruby-oci8-1.0.0-rc3.tar.gz
   cd ruby-oci8-1.0.0-rc3
   ruby setup.rb config -- --with-instant-client=/opt/oracle/10.2.0.3
   make
   make install
   
   
3. test it
   
   
   %> irb
   irb(main):001:0> require 'oci8'
   => true
   irb(main):002:0> exit
   
   
4. Specify the following in your database.yml
   production:
   adapter: oci
   host: //dbHost:1521/oracle_instance
   username: xxxx
   password: xxxx
   
   
5. To use sqlplus to connect to the Oracle db
   
   sqlplus username/password@//dbHost/Oracle_db_instance
   
   or (if you don't want the pwd to be visible in ps listings)
   
   sqlplus /NOLOG
   SQL*Plus: Release 10.2.0.3.0 - Production on Thu Sep 6 17:08:28 2007
   
   Copyright (c) 1982, 2006, Oracle. All Rights Reserved.
   
   SQL> connect username/password@//dbHost/Oracle_db_instance
   
   No need to muck with any tnsnames.ora.