Connection to Oracle

This document explains the specific aspect of connecting Cocoon to an Oracle Database.
For a general explanation on database connection please refer to the official documentation. It may also be worth your while to search the Oracle FAQ site.

Downloading the jdbc drivers

The jdbc drivers can be downloaded here.
Drop the classes12.zip file either in $COCOON_HOME/web-inf/lib or $TOMCAT_HOME/common/lib/.

Setting Web.xml

In the $Cocoon_Home/WEB-INF/ directory you will find the web.xml file. Open it and look for this rows

<init-param>
  <param-name>load-class</param-name> 
    <param-value>
<!-- 
 For IBM WebSphere:
        com.ibm.servlet.classloader.Handler ..-->

here you have to add the following line:

<!--  For Oracle:   --> 
          oracle.jdbc.driver.OracleDriver 

Setting cocoon.xconf

search for: <datasources> add into this element these lines:

  <jdbc name="YourPoolName">
    <pool-controller min="5" max="10" oradb="true"/>
    <dburl>jdbc:oracle:thin:@YourServerName:1521:SID</dburl>
    <user>YourUsername</user>
    <password>YourPassword</password>
  </jdbc>

Setting sitemap.xmap

When you want to use the connection you just call the jdbc name inside the pipeline in this way:

<map:match pattern="sqlquery">
  <map:generate src="sql/sqlquery.xml"/>
  <map:transform type="sql">
    <map:parameter name="use-connection" value="YourPoolName"/>
  </map:transform>
  <map:transform type="xslt" src="../stylesheets/transformation.xslt"/>
  <map:serialize type="svg2jpeg"/>
</map:match>

Obviously you have to adapt this sample to fill your need.
SpecificDatabaseConnection

Comments from the readers

The Oracle 8.1.7 jdbc driver apparently has to be provided as a jar file instead of the standard classes12.zip, or the class loader won't find the driver class.