What's New in Oracle Data Provider for .NET?

This section describes new features in Oracle Data Provider for .NET 10g Release 1 (10.1.0.3) and provides pointers to additional information. New features information from previous releases is also retained to help those users migrating to the current release.

The following sections describe the new features in Oracle Data Provider for .NET:

• New Features in Oracle Data Provider for .NET Release 10.1.0.3

• New Features in Oracle Data Provider for .NET Release 10.1

• New Features in Oracle Data Provider for .NET Release 9.2.0.4

New Features in Oracle Data Provider for .NET Release 10.1.0.3

Oracle Data Provider for .NET release 10.1.0.3 includes the following:

• Statement Caching

  This feature provides and manages a cache of statements for each session. The developer can control which statements are cached and how many. This improves performance and scalability.

  
  

  See Also: "Statement Caching"

  
  

• .NET Framework 1.1 Enhancements

  These enhancements expose new ADO.NET functionality that was introduced in Microsoft .NET Framework 1.1.

  
  

  See Also: "EnlistDistributedTransaction" "HasRows"

  
  

• Support for Command Cancellation

  These two new features relate to command cancellation. The CommandTimeout feature cancels the execution of a command when a specified amount of time elapses after the execution, while the Cancel method can be called explicitly by the application to terminate the execution of a command.

  
  

  See Also: "CommandTimeout" "Cancel"

  
  

• DerivedParameters Method

  This method populates the parameter collection for the OracleCommand that represents a stored procedure or function by querying the database for the parameter information.

  
  

  See Also: "DeriveParameters"

  
  

New Features in Oracle Data Provider for .NET Release 10.1

Oracle Data Provider for .NET release 10.1 includes the following:

• Support for Oracle Grids

  ODP.NET is grid-enabled, allowing developers to take advantage of Oracle database grid support without having to make changes to their application code.

• Support for BINARY_FLOAT and BINARY_DOUBLE datatypes in the database

  ODP.NET supports the new database native types BINARY_FLOAT and BINARY_DOUBLE

  
  

  See Also: "Datatypes BINARY_FLOAT and BINARY_DOUBLE"

  
  

• Support for Multiple Homes

  ODP.NET can be installed in Multiple Oracle Homes.

  In order to make multiple homes available, some of the ODP.NET files include a version number, and the use of a HOMEID is required.

• Support for schema-based XMLType in the database

  ODP.NET supports the native schema-based XMLType.

New Features in Oracle Data Provider for .NET Release 9.2.0.4

Oracle Data Provider for .NET release 9.2.0.4, which was released on Oracle Technology Network (OTN) included the following:

• XML support in ODP.NET.

  With XML support, ODP.NET can now:

  • Store XML data natively in the database server as the Oracle database native type, XMLType.

  • Access relational and object-relational data as XML data from an Oracle database instance into Microsoft .NET environment, process the XML using Microsoft .NET framework.

  • Save changes to the database server using XML data.

    
    

    See Also: "ODP.NET XML Support"

    
    

• Support for PL/SQL Associative Array Binding

  ODP.NET supports PL/SQL Associative Array (formerly known as PL/SQL Index-By Tables) binding.

  An application can bind an OracleParameter, as a PL/SQL Associative Array, to a PL/SQL stored procedure using OracleParameter properties.

  
  

  See Also: "PL/SQL Associative Array"

  
  

• Support for InitialLOBFetchSize property on OracleCommand and OracleDataReader objects

  
  

  See Also: "Obtaining LOB Data"