Tracking node-oracledb 4.0 Development

[cjbj]

Updates:

Node-oracledb 4.0 has been released: https://blogs.oracle.com/opal/oracle-db-named-objects-and-advanced-queuing-support-new-in-node-oracledb-40

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Node-oracledb 4.0-dev is a 'work in progress' and subject to change:

• There is a prebuilt binary package at https://github.com/oracle/node-oracledb/releases/tag/v4.0.0-dev-20190623 with commits up to 2019-06-23 (i.e. with the initial named object query & bind support) Alternatively, you can compile from source code as shown in the next point
• Install the development branch by running npm install oracle/node-oracledb#dev-4.0 See here for general steps about compiling.
• View the CHANGELOG
• The documentation is here

You need Node.js 8.16, 10.16, or 12 (or later in each version) to use this version of node-oracledb.

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It's time to start thinking about node-oracledb 4.

We just pushed out node-oracledb 3.1.2 with a few bug fixes yesterday and want to do some bigger tasks for the next release.

The task list had quite a few things ticked off over last year: SODA; Privileged Connections; Array DML; Native EBR; Native events; Password Change; Installer improvements; CQN; Heterogeneous Connection Pool; Session tagging and state fixup; Pool draining; Call timeouts; Incremental improvements and stabilization. I have to thank the team and contributors for this. There have been other ongoing efforts we've been involved in too, from other languages, through making Instant Client RPMs available without clickthrough, to the Oracle 18c XE release (Windows 18c XE was released today, by the way, so you're no longer restricted to using it on Linux). Overall it was a busy year.

There's a lot still on the task list for future node-oracledb releases but I want to keep focus and not bite off too much for 4.0. What I would like to see is PL/SQL and SQL object binding support; this is a big task but we can hope! A major release would also be the place to remove the NAN layer in the implementation and use N-API - @anthony-tuininga has started looking at this. If N-API works functionally for node-oracledb, then we'd need to verify that it is stable before making a final decision about using it for 4.0.

Looking at timing, there are no guarantees. I think node-oracledb 4 will support only Node 8 and higher, based on the near EOL of Node 6, and also the status of N-API in Node 6. So, plan to upgrade Node to something newer if you want to use node-oracledb 4.

Reminder: everything is subject to change. And, if you have a pressing need for a feature, you can do it yourself!

[tuanvayn]

n-api is sound good

[cjbj]

@tuancongtuyn any particular reason?

[tuanvayn]

I think need to make the lib easier to use. I lost many time to learn how to config oracledb

[cjbj]

@tuancongtuyn node-oracledb will still use a binary that needs Oracle Client. There would be a small advantage when upgrading Node.js since one node-oracledb binary (that uses N-API) will not not need recompiling. Note that node-oracledb 3.1 partially does this (for a predetermined set of Node.js versions) with it's multi-binary install changes.

[cjbj]

An update on the N-API work, which is the foundation refactoring before we begin any new user-visible features: it's progressing well but still not complete or fully tested. If we decide it's OK and we use N-API in node-oracledb 4, you will need to be using Node.js 8.12 or later.

Testing did uncover a major performance issue in the Node.js N-API implementation affecting strings. It has a simple yet-to-be-merged fix, which I hope will land in Node.js 8, 10 and 12. What this means is that to get comparable performance with node-oracledb 3, you would have to use node-oracledb 4 with Node.js 12 or with latest Node.js 8.x and 10.x patch releases (assuming the fix is back ported).

Stay tuned. Comments welcome.

[cjbj]

I pushed a development branch https://github.com/oracle/node-oracledb/tree/dev-4.0 that you can install with npm install oracle/node-oracledb#dev-4.0. This has the N-API changes that may or may not be incorporated into any eventual node-oracledb 4.0, depending on the Node.js N-API performance fix getting into Node.js 8 & 10 (it is already merged to Node.js master).

[tuanvayn]

@cjbj Did you test performance? And how is it improve than the older?

[cjbj]

@tuancongtuyn It's too early to say.

[cjbj]

@tuancongtuyn Node 11.12 just got announced and is the first release (so far) to have the N-API performance fix: do some testing and let us know how you find the speed. There is still a memory leak that we know of, but this may not affect you.

[tuanvayn]

@tuancongtuyn Node 11.12 just got announced and is the first release (so far) to have the N-API performance fix: do some testing and let us know how you find the speed. There is still a memory leak that we know of, but this may not affect you.

Do you want your library can integrate to bookselfjs in future?

[sosoba]

My proposals for v4:

1. New fetch type "ISO string" for DATE and 3 kinds of TIMESTAMP database types.
2. New fetch type BigInt for NUMBER database.