In the 'create-db-oracle.sql' script, text fields are created as VARCHAR and
number fields as INT. There are also some fields created as LONG, like the
'data' field in the 'metadata' table.
Oracle recommends using VARCHAR2 instead of VARCHAR and NUMBER instead of
INT. LONG columns are supported for backward compatibility and Oracle
recommends convert LONG columns to LOB.
Can I change this script to create VARCHAR2, NUMBER and LONG columns?
Geonetwork is going to work properly if I install with this change?
Personally, I would like to see the geonetwork script modified as dealing
with LONGs are problematic. In our case we would like to query certain
elements within the XML documents using XMLQUERY/XMLTABLE however we cannot
since the data is in a LONG. And it does not looks like there are any ways
to convert LONG to CLOB on the fly without making a custom function.
Also, as you mention, based on the Oracle documentation, LONG is depreciated
and VARCHAR behaves the same as VARCHAR2 but should not be used as it is
reserved for future use. So I'm not sure why this script uses LONG or
VARCHAR?
We wanted to changed the datatypes in our environment as well however as we
do no want to deviate from the supported documentation with fear that it may
cause issues in the future, we have currently opted to create a monthly job
that copies the data to another table converting the LONG to CLOB in the
process. This means that we are always working with slightly stale
information.
I wasn't aware of this reference (which is odd). I've opened a ticket (#895) to change long to clob and varchar to varchar2 and am checking this out now. Off the top of my head, I can't see anything that should prevent this from working.
Cheers and thanks,
Simon
________________________________________
From: ianwallen [ianwallen@anonymised.com]
Sent: Monday, 7 May 2012 10:43 PM
To: geonetwork-users@lists.sourceforge.net
Subject: Re: [GeoNetwork-users] Script for Oracle database creation
Personally, I would like to see the geonetwork script modified as dealing
with LONGs are problematic. In our case we would like to query certain
elements within the XML documents using XMLQUERY/XMLTABLE however we cannot
since the data is in a LONG. And it does not looks like there are any ways
to convert LONG to CLOB on the fly without making a custom function.
Also, as you mention, based on the Oracle documentation, LONG is depreciated
and VARCHAR behaves the same as VARCHAR2 but should not be used as it is
reserved for future use. So I'm not sure why this script uses LONG or
VARCHAR?
We wanted to changed the datatypes in our environment as well however as we
do no want to deviate from the supported documentation with fear that it may
cause issues in the future, we have currently opted to create a monthly job
that copies the data to another table converting the LONG to CLOB in the
process. This means that we are always working with slightly stale
information.