[edit] Last updated: Fri, 28 Jun 2013

oci_pconnect

(PHP 5, PECL OCI8 >= 1.1.0)

oci_pconnect — Connect to an Oracle database using a persistent connection

Description

resource oci_pconnect ( string $username , string $password [, string $connection_string [, string $character_set [, int $session_mode ]]] )

Creates a persistent connection to an Oracle server and logs on.

Persistent connections are cached and re-used between requests, resulting in reduced overhead on each page load; a typical PHP application will have a single persistent connection open against an Oracle server per Apache child process (or PHP FastCGI/CGI process). See the Persistent Database Connections section for more information.

Parameters

username

The Oracle user name.

password

The password for username.

connection_string

Contains the Oracle instance to connect to. It can be an » Easy Connect string, or a Connect Name from the tnsnames.ora file, or the name of a local Oracle instance.

If not specified, PHP uses environment variables such as TWO_TASK (on Linux) or LOCAL (on Windows) and ORACLE_SID to determine the Oracle instance to connect to.

To use the Easy Connect naming method, PHP must be linked with Oracle 10g or greater Client libraries. The Easy Connect string for Oracle 10g is of the form: [//]host_name[:port][/service_name]. With Oracle 11g, the syntax is: [//]host_name[:port][/service_name][:server_type][/instance_name]. Service names can be found by running the Oracle utility lsnrctl status on the database server machine.

The tnsnames.ora file can be in the Oracle Net search path, which includes $ORACLE_HOME/network/admin and /etc. Alternatively set TNS_ADMIN so that $TNS_ADMIN/tnsnames.ora is read. Make sure the web daemon has read access to the file.

character_set

Determines the character set used by the Oracle Client libraries. The character set does not need to match the character set used by the database. If it doesn't match, Oracle will do its best to convert data to and from the database character set. Depending on the character sets this may not give usable results. Conversion also adds some time overhead.

If not specified, the Oracle Client libraries determine a character set from the NLS_LANG environment variable.

Passing this parameter can reduce connection time.

session_mode

This parameter is available since version PHP 5 (PECL OCI8 1.1) and accepts the following values: OCI_DEFAULT, OCI_SYSOPER and OCI_SYSDBA. If either OCI_SYSOPER or OCI_SYSDBA were specified, this function will try to establish privileged connection using external credentials. Privileged connections are disabled by default. To enable them you need to set oci8.privileged_connect to On.

PHP 5.3 (PECL OCI8 1.3.4) introduced the OCI_CRED_EXT mode value. This tells Oracle to use External or OS authentication, which must be configured in the database. The OCI_CRED_EXT flag can only be used with username of "/" and a empty password. oci8.privileged_connect may be On or Off.

OCI_CRED_EXT may be combined with the OCI_SYSOPER or OCI_SYSDBA modes.

OCI_CRED_EXT is not supported on Windows for security reasons.

Return Values

Returns a connection identifier or FALSE on error.

Notes

Note: Starting with PHP 5.1.2 and PECL oci8 1.1, the lifetime and maximum number of persistent Oracle connections can be tuned by setting the following configuration values: oci8.persistent_timeout, oci8.ping_interval and oci8.max_persistent.

Note:
In PHP versions before 5.0.0 you must use ociplogon() instead. The old function name can still be used in current versions, however it is deprecated and not recommended.


Installed on CentOS 6.2, and had lots of trouble getting it to recognize tnsnames.ora.  The fix for me was:



1. Make sure apache is getting the TNS_ADMIN env variable by putting it in the /etc/init.d/httpd file:

 TNS_ADMIN=/usr/lib/oracle/11.2/client64/network/admin

 export PATH TNS_ADMIN



This can be debugging in PHP by <?php echo system('env'); ?> and by verifying that TNS_ADMIN is there.



2. Make sure to use the name at the beginning of the tnsnames.ora file - not the SID (although ideally they should match.  However, if the name at the beginning is XXXX.world then pconnect will expect this - not the SID)

down

php at jaggard dot org dot uk ¶

4 years ago


[Editor's note: OCI8 1.3 should not experience the problem described in this user comment. The first use of such a connection will return an Oracle error which will trigger a cleanup in PHP.  Subsequent persistent connection calls will then succeed.  For high availability you might consider doing consecutive oci_pconnect calls in your script.]





If you connect using oci_pconnect and the connection has logged you off but is still valid, there seems to be no way to re-use that connection. The next time I try oci_pconnect and then perform an oci_execute operation, I get a "ORA-01012: not logged on" warning. This problem remains, even if I close the connection using oci_close. I ended up with the following (rather annoying) code.





<?php


    function getOracleConnection()


    {


      if (!function_exists('oci_pconnect'))


        return false;


      $toReturn = oci_pconnect('user', 'pass', 'db');


      if ($testRes = @oci_parse($toReturn, 'SELECT Count(group_type_code) FROM pvo.group_type'))


        if (@oci_execute($testRes))


          if (@oci_fetch_array($testRes))


            return $toReturn;


      oci_close($toReturn);


      if (!function_exists('oci_connect'))


        return false;


      $toReturn = oci_connect('user', 'pass', 'db');


      if ($testRes = @oci_parse($toReturn, 'SELECT Count(group_type_code) FROM pvo.group_type'))


        if (@oci_execute($testRes))


          if (@oci_fetch_array($testRes))


            return $toReturn;


      oci_close($toReturn);


      if (!function_exists('oci_new_connect'))


        return false;


      $toReturn = oci_new_connect('user', 'pass', 'db');


      if ($testRes = @oci_parse($toReturn, 'SELECT Count(group_type_code) FROM pvo.group_type'))


        if (@oci_execute($testRes))


          if (@oci_fetch_array($testRes))


            return $toReturn;


      oci_close($toReturn);


      return false;


    }


?>