ORG 1.0 User Guide

1. Introduction

Oracle has been selected as the standard for database systems on the Virginia Tech campus. There are efforts under way to implement or reimplement a variety of systems online both inside and outside the library using Oracle. Each system requires some type of interface, usually it is a custom-designed client running on a Windows PC or Macintosh system.

There is a lot of interest in supplementary access or in some instances, primary access being available through a World Wide Web client such as the immensely popular Netscape client. A simple web form/cgi gateway combination can provide instant cross-platform access to an Oracle database. I have looked at several web gateway systems provided by Oracle, and have found these to be extremely difficult to implement and overkill for proposed University Libraries projects.

I have identified three main functions that users would perform on a table through the web: adding a record, searching, and updating a record. So I developed three gateways which allow a programmer to build HTML forms to provide direct access to most tables*. This set of gateways eliminates the need for the database designer to delve into PERL. All configurations are placed in tags in the HTML form.

* In some instances, the developer might need to rearrange the layout of a table to make it ORG compliant. See Usage.

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