Re: [OT] Get the database name in Oracle

You can't really mix your MySQL "show databases" concept with Oracle as the underlying philosophy is different. In MySQL a single engine is used to maintain all databases, but Oracle has a separate "engine" for each database - i.e. nothing is shared unless you have a clustered db - so the databases are independent of - and have no knowledge of - each other. As someone pointed out, the oratab file has a list of databases, but some may have been deleted and the oratab not changed to reflect it.

Comment on Re: [OT] Get the database name in Oracle

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Re^2: [OT] Get the database name in Oracle by kulls (Hermit) on Jan 03, 2006 at 09:22 UTC
I can able to understand what you're saying and i don't know much about Oracle. if you look into the DBD::ORACLE , `use DBI; $dbh = DBI->connect("dbi:Oracle:$dbname",$user,$passwd);` [download] What's the meaning of `$dbname` here ? . when i invoke sqlplus usr/pwd , then it entered into some database.i donno which one..Just i want to know before i put my hands on this. -kulls	[reply] [d/l] [select]
Re^3: [OT] Get the database name in Oracle by astroboy (Chaplain) on Jan 03, 2006 at 09:42 UTC
Well, in this context dbname isn't the name of your database, but a tnsname (which may be in a local tnsnames.ora file, your Oracle Names server or on an LDAP server). In other words the tnsname is a shorthand descriptor for the connection parameters to your database (including protocol, host or ip address, etc) It may (and usually does) have tha same name as your database, but this isn't required If all you want to do is get your connect name, it should be in $dbh->{Name} (I don't have ready access to Oracle at the moment, but I tested that it works for MySQL). Otherwise, get your DBA to give you access to v$database, and you can query the real db name from there.	[reply]