Use Oracle Geometry without the Oracle Spatial Extension?

[Peadar]

Hi All,

I apologise if this is posted before or a really obvious answer - but I'm having trouble connecting to our Oracle server using the 'Oracle Spatial' connector in MapInfo.  

We can connect using ODBC (which doesn’t support geometry), and but we hit an error when using the ‘Oracle Spatial’ connector.  The Error is "OCI-21560: argument 4 is null, invalid, or out of range". This is a weird error as there's only 3 arguments to pass the driver.

MapInfo Support are telling us that we need to have the Oracle Spatial extension installed on the server to use the ‘Oracle Spatial’ driver, but I’m a little surprised about this as Oracle supports geometry natively without the Spatial extension.

Does anyone have experiences where they have used Geometry in Oracle with MapInfo, without purchasing the Spatial extension? Or I am I just barking up the wrong tree (and have to bite the bullet and purchase the fairly expensive Spatial Extension)?  I know I should just believe PB Insight support, but I’m (foolishly) optimistic…

From a very hopeful,

Peadar O’Connor 

[Richard Greenwood]

I do not think you are "barking up the wrong tree". It's been too many years ago for me to be 100% certain, but I believe I was able to connect MapInfo to Oracle Locator. "Locator" is, or at least was, the name of Oracle's free, stripped down version of the Spatial extension. I was testing interoperability between several GIS platforms at the time which is why I'm not entirely certain of my recollection. I think Locator is just Spatial w/o some analytical functions, but the interface and storage formats are the same.

Of course my standard advice is to ditch Oracle and switch to PostgreSQL & PostGIS.

Good luck, keep us posted.

Rich

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[Peadar]

Hi Richard,

Thank you for your reply!

We've set up a Oracle XE database on a local PC (the free 10gig database), which naturally does not have the Spatial extension, and I was able to connect to the database using 'Oracle Spatial' connector - which reveals two things:

1. The Oracle Database does NOT need the Spatial extension; and

2. The issue does appear to be a server configuration issue.

What that issue is, I'm not sure yet, but the proof of concept shows we're not getting the whole story from the PB Insight support team.  They're not able to say why the driver has an Argument 4 error when there's only 3 arguments to pass, so we're not sure what the conflict is yet.

I'll post back here if we figure out what the configuration issue is with the proper server.

BTW yes, I started mucking around with Postgre/PostGIS but it's not permitted by our IT Team, so we had to drop that. Life might have been so much easier! :)

Thanks again.

Peadar.

[Bo Victor Thomsen]

Peadar -

Locator is a cut down version of Spatial - _function wise_. But there is no difference in the basic data structure for the two extensions. Se this article: http://www.spatialdbadvisor.com/oracle_spatial_tips_tricks/55/oracle-locator-vs-enterprise-licensing-the-sdogeom-package

Perhaps MapInfo is using a Oracle function which is excluded from the Locator package. If that is the case you might be able to circumnavigate the problem by installing the extra java extensions mentioned in the article.

But as Richard says: If it's possible,� ditch Oracle and use PostGres/PostGIS. IMHO: Postgres/PostGis is simple to use; it's as fast or faster than Oralce for spatial queries and is free to download and install.�

Regards
Bo Victor Thomsen
Aestas-GIS
Denmark

Den 07-01-2014 03:33, Richard Greenwood skrev:

I do not think you are "barking up the wrong tree". It's been too many years ago for me to be 100% certain, but I believe I was able to connect MapInfo to Oracle Locator. "Locator" is, or at least was, the name of Oracle's free, stripped down version of the Spatial extension. I was testing interoperability between several GIS platforms at the time which is why I'm not entirely certain of my recollection. I think Locator is just Spatial w/o some analytical functions, but the interface and storage formats are the same.

Of course my standard advice is to ditch Oracle and switch to PostgreSQL & PostGIS.

Good luck, keep us posted.

Rich

On Mon, Jan 6, 2014 at 4:47 PM, Peadar <wherei...@gmail.com> wrote:

Hi All,

I apologise if this is posted before or a really obvious answer - but I'm having trouble connecting to our Oracle server using the 'Oracle Spatial' connector in MapInfo.��

We can connect using ODBC (which doesn�t support geometry), and but we hit an error when using the �Oracle Spatial� connector. �The Error is "OCI-21560: argument 4 is null, invalid, or out of range". This is a weird error as there's only 3 arguments to pass the driver.

MapInfo Support are telling us that we need to have the Oracle Spatial extension installed on the server to use the �Oracle Spatial� driver, but I�m a little surprised about this as Oracle supports geometry natively without the Spatial extension.

Does anyone have experiences where they have used Geometry in Oracle with MapInfo, without purchasing the Spatial extension? Or I am I just barking up the wrong tree (and have to bite the bullet and purchase the fairly expensive Spatial Extension)?� I know I should just believe PB Insight support, but I�m (foolishly) optimistic�

From a very hopeful,

Peadar O�Connor�

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[Bo Victor Thomsen]

Peadar -

Take a look at the article I mentioned in my previous post. In the beginning of the article the author states, that Oracle XE has the complete SDO_GEOM package included. That might explain why MapInfo can connect to a Oracle XE based database, but not an standard (paid-for) Oracle instance without the Spatial extension.

Regards
Bo Victor Thomsen
Aestas-GIS
Denmark

Den 07-01-2014 05:10, Peadar skrev:

Hi Richard,

Thank you for your reply!

We've set up a Oracle XE database on a local PC (the free 10gig database), which naturally does not have the Spatial extension, and I was able to connect to the database using 'Oracle Spatial' connector - which reveals two things:

1. The Oracle Database does NOT need the Spatial extension; and

2. The issue does appear to be a server configuration issue.

What that issue is, I'm not sure yet, but the proof of concept shows we're not getting the whole story from the PB Insight support team. �They're not able to say why the driver has an Argument 4 error when there's only 3 arguments to pass, so we're not sure what the conflict is yet.

I'll post back here if we figure out what the configuration issue is with the proper server.

BTW yes, I started mucking around with Postgre/PostGIS but it's not permitted by our IT Team, so we had to drop that. Life might have been so much easier! :)

Thanks again.

Peadar.

On Tuesday, January 7, 2014 9:47:49 AM UTC+10, Peadar wrote:

Hi All,

I apologise if this is posted before or a really obvious answer - but I'm having trouble connecting to our Oracle server using the 'Oracle Spatial' connector in MapInfo.��

We can connect using ODBC (which doesn�t support geometry), and but we hit an error when using the �Oracle Spatial� connector. �The Error is "OCI-21560: argument 4 is null, invalid, or out of range". This is a weird error as there's only 3 arguments to pass the driver.

MapInfo Support are telling us that we need to have the Oracle Spatial extension installed on the server to use the �Oracle Spatial� driver, but I�m a little surprised about this as Oracle supports geometry natively without the Spatial extension.

Does anyone have experiences where they have used Geometry in Oracle with MapInfo, without purchasing the Spatial extension? Or I am I just barking up the wrong tree (and have to bite the bullet and purchase the fairly expensive Spatial Extension)?� I know I should just believe PB Insight support, but I�m (foolishly) optimistic�

From a very hopeful,

Peadar O�Connor�

[Greg]

I'm no Oracle expert(!), but presume you have the Oracle client installed on the local machine?  I think you'd be able to connect via ODBC without it, and wouldn't need it to connect to an Oracle XE install.

 

Greg

[Peadar]

Hi Greg,

Thanks for your reply - yes, the Oracle 11.2 Driver is installed on the client machine. It's a bit of an odd case really. I have a feeling it's got to do with the way out IT group configured the server.

Thank you tho!

Peadar

[Peadar]

Hi Bo,

Thank you for your reply! I was reading that web site - thank you! It explained a bit.  I'm wondering if our IT group hasn't configured the Locator part of the 11g installation on the Oracle Server, so will follow up that path.  I thought it was a default part of the installation, but will follow up.

Thanks again!

Peadar.