Variant in Oracle connector

[sriec12]

Hello Everyone,

Can anyone tell me what is the meaning of "Variant" in Oracle connector.

It has values 10 and 11................what does it mean ?

[priyadarshikunal]

thats the version of oracle client installed on the server so that it will use the APIs for that version.

So 10 is for Oracle 10 and 11 is for Oracle 11.

Although I would not recommend but You can still bypass that by creating a few soft links on the unix server.

[sriec12]

My oracle client is 11, So at every stage Oracle connector should I use 11 instead of 10.


What do you mean by "I would not recommend"....... Do you want me to use only 10 ?

[priyadarshikunal]

No I did not advise you to use 10, You should use 11 if the client is 11.

I mentioned that in case you are migrating from one system to another where the oracle client is different, you can avoid changing it by creating some soft links. Or install compatible oracle client ofcourse.

[sriec12]

Thanks priyadarshikunal.

I got your point, Whenever I interact with you. I will get chance to explore further.

Now I got one more question.

I will use 11 as variant for now. In future the oracle client changed to some other version then you suggesting "somesoft links", I am not clear with this ?

Is there any other stage to avoid this version conflict ?

[kduke]

Usually you can use 11 with Oracle 10 but not 10 with Oracle 11. They seem to be downward compatible.

[sriec12]

@kduke Thanks your your reply.

So far in our project we are using Variant as 10 and our oracle is 11g.

We never faced issues with this?

[chulett]

In my experience, you can use a lower version Oracle client to connect to a higher version Oracle instance without issue. However, the reverse could be problematical.

[sriec12]

Thanks each and every one.

I am opening new thread regarding performance issue of a job. see u shortly