cx_Oracle 5.0

[Anthony Tuininga]

What is cx_Oracle?

cx_Oracle is a Python extension module that allows access to Oracle and
conforms to the Python database API 2.0 specifications with a few
exceptions.


Where do I get it?

http://cx-oracle.sourceforge.net


What's new?

1) Added support for Python 3.0 with much help from Amaury Forgeot d'Arc.

2) Removed support for Python 2.3 and Oracle 8i; Python 2.4 and Oracle
9i are the minimum releases supported; binaries are only available for
Oracle 10g and Oracle 11g; binaries for Linux have been built on
CentOS 5 for increased compatibility and now include x86_64 as well

3) Added support for full unicode mode in Python 2.x where all strings
are passed in and returned as unicode (module must be built in this
mode) rather than encoded strings; to build the module in this mode
use this command: "WITH_UNICODE=1 python setup.py build"

4) nchar and nvarchar columns now return unicode instead of encoded strings

5) Added support for an output type handler and/or an input type
handler to be specified at the connection and cursor levels

6) Added support for specifying both input and output converters for variables

7) Added support for specifying the array size of variables that are
created using the cursor.var() method

8) Added support for events mode and database resident connection
pooling (DRCP) in Oracle 11g

9) Added support for changing the password during construction of a
new connection object as well as after the connection object has been
created

10) Added support for the interval day to second data type in Oracle,
represented as datetime.timedelta objects in Python

11) Added support for getting and setting the current_schema attribute
for a session

12) Added support for proxy authentication in session pools as
requested by Michael Wegrzynek (and thanks for the initial patch as
well)

13) Modified connection.prepare() to return a boolean indicating if a
transaction was actually prepared in order to avoid the error
ORA-24756 (transaction does not exist)

14) Raise a cx_Oracle.Error instance rather than a string for column
truncation errors as requested by Helge Tesdal

15) Fixed handling of environment handles in session pools in order to
allow session pools to fetch objects without exceptions taking place