Comparison of application development capabilities

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Databases are a foundation of today’s data-driven enterprise, and applications are increasingly data intensive. Vendors in turn work to continually enhance their database solutions to support the needs of application developers who seek the flexibility to make choices and simple ways for executing complex tasks. For example, databases that can provide support for multiple server-side languages for triggers, functions, and stored procedures give developers the option to choose their language for both client, middle-tier, and database server programming. Object-oriented capabilities like user-defined object types allow the database to store real-world representations of data, thus making development easier, quicker, and more understandable.

Application development	Oracle Enterprise	EDB Postgres Advanced Server
IDE	Yes SQL Developer	Yes Postgres Enterprise Manager
Database server programming language	Yes PL/SQL (block structured language)	Yes EDB SPL (PL/SQL compatible) (block structured language)
Additional programming languages for database server stored procedures, triggers, and functions	Yes Java, C, .NET (C#, Visual Basic)	Yes PL/pgSQL (PostgreSQL’s procedural language), C, C++, PL/Perl, Python, PL/Tcl
JDBC support	Yes	Yes EDB JDBC Connector
ODBC support	Yes	Yes EDB ODBC Connector
.NET support	Yes	Yes EDB .NET Connector
OCI support	Yes	Yes ✓ EDB OCL Connector
PL/SQL debugger	Yes SQL Developer	Yes Postgres Enterprise Manager
Stored procedures	Yes	Yes ✓
Named parameter notation for stored procedures	Yes	Yes ✓
Triggers	Yes	Yes ✓
REF cursors	Yes	Yes ✓
Anonymous blocks	Yes	Yes ✓
Bulk collect/bind	Yes	Yes ✓
Associative arrays	Yes	Yes ✓
Nested tables	Yes	Yes ✓
VARRAYS	Yes	Yes ✓
Hierarchical queries	Yes	Yes ✓
Parallel query	Yes	Yes ✓
PL/SQL supplied packages	Yes	Yes (See EDB Postgres Advanced Server-compatible package support)
PRAGMA RESTRICT_REFERENCES	Yes	Yes ✓
PRAGMA EXCEPTION_INIT	Yes	Yes ✓
PRAGMA AUTONOMOUS_TRANSACTION	Yes	Yes ✓
User-defined functions	Yes	Yes
User-defined objects	Yes	Yes
User-defined exceptions	Yes	Yes ✓

EDB Postgres Advanced Server-compatible package support

EDB focuses on the most popular functions in packages. For some packages, not all Oracle functions are supported. For specific details, refer to the EDB Postgres Advanced Server documentation.

Package name	Package description
DBMS_ALERT	Functions that allow asynchronous notification of database events by way of an alert. Using this package and triggers, an application can notify itself whenever values of interest in the database are changed.
DBMS_AQ	Database-integrated asynchronous message queuing provides a flexible mechanism for integrating applications across the enterprise by communicating activities and exchanging a variety of information payloads.
DBMS_AQADM	Provides procedures to create and manage queues and queue tables.
DBMS_CRYPTO	Provides functions to encrypt and decrypt stored data.
DBMS_JOB	Was replaced by DBMS_SCHEDULER but is included for compatibility with older Oracle applications.
DBMS_LOB	Functions that allow access to and manipulation of Large Object values.
DBMS_LOCK	Provides a function interface to Lock Management services.
DBMS_MVIEW	Provides procedures to manage and refresh materialized views and their dependencies.
DBMS_OUTPUT	Allows sending messages from stored procedures, packages, and triggers for application or debugging use.
DBMS_PIPE	Functions that allow two or more sessions in the same database instance to communicate with one another.
DBMS_PROFILER	Provides functions to profile stored procedure workloads and identify performance bottlenecks.
DBMS_RANDOM	Useful functions to generate random text, numeric, and date values.
DBMS_REDACT	Redaction prevents a user from seeing all or portions of sensitive data.
DBMS_RLS	Implements row-level security functions in the database, blocking users from seeing each other’s data in the same application.
DBMS_SCHEDULER	Job scheduler functions for creating and executing unattended repetitive tasks inside the database.
DBMS_SQL	Permits the use of dynamic SQL in procedures to allow applications to run SQL statements with unknown parameters (such as table name) until runtime.
DBMS_SESSION	Functions with the ability to enable and disable roles.
DBMS_UTILITY	A collection of functions for getting information about various runtime operations and metadata from the database.
HTF	A collection of functions for generating HTML tags.
HTP	A collection of procedures for generating HTML tags.
UTL_ENCODE	Functions to perform Base64 encoding and decoding of data intended for transport between hosts.
UTL_FILE	Allows database procedures to read and write operating system text files in an I/O stream fashion.
UTL_HTTP	Functions that enable you to make HTTP calls to access information on web servers.
UTL_MAIL	Provides functions to create, manage, and send email from the database including attachments, CC, and BCC.
UTL_RAW	Functions supporting manipulating raw data types.
UTL_SMTP	Provides functions for sending email via SMTP according to the RFC821 specification.
UTL_TCP	Provides procedures and functions to enable PL/SQL applications to communicate with external TCP/IP-based servers using TCP/IP.
UTL_URL	Functions for escaping and “unescaping” URL strings.

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EDB Postgres Advanced Server-compatible package support

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