Oracle SQL Developer Tool is a stand alone graphic database developer tool that connects to Oracle as well as third-party databases which can be used to perform a variety of tasks from running simple queries to migration of databases from third party vendor products to Oracle.
This article by Dr. Jayaram Krishnaswamy, shows how the reader may use Oracle’s most recent tool, the Oracle SQL Developer 1.5 to work with the MySQL database. An example of migrating a table in MySQL to Oracle 10G XE is also described.
The Oracle SQL Developer Tool has steadily improved from its beginnings in version 1.1. The earlier versions are briefly explained here. The latest version, SQL Developer 1.5.4 released in March 2009 was described in this article.
The SQL Developer tool[(1.5.4.59.40)] bundle can be downloaded from Oracle’s web site, Oracle Technology Products. When you unzip the bundle you are ready to start using this tool. You may get an even more recent version of this tool as it is continuously updated.
It is assumed that you have a MySQL Server that you can connect to and that you have the required credentials. The MySQL server used in developing this article was installed when the XAMPP bundle was installed. Reader will benefit by reading earlier MySQL articles 1, 2, 3 on the Packt site.
Connecting to MySQL
Out of the box Oracle SQL Developer 1.5.4 only supports Oracle and MS Access. The product documents clearly says that it can connect to other database products. This article will show how this is achieved. In order to install products from Oracle you must have username and password for the Oracle web Account.
Bring up the Oracle SQL Developer application by clicking the executable. The program starts up and after a while the user interface gets displayed as shown.
Right click on Connection, the New Connection page opens as shown displaying the default connection to the resident Oracle 10G XE server.
Click the menu item Help and choose “Check for Updates”. This brings up the wizard displaying the Welcome screen as shown in the next figure.
Click Next. The “Source” page of the wizard shows up as shown.
The updates for Oracle SQL Developer is already chosen. Place a check mark for “Third Party SQL Developer Extensions”. You can choose to install looking for updates on the internet or from the downloaded bundle, if it exists. First try the internet and click Next. This brings up the “Updates” page of the wizard as shown in the next figure.
Read the warning on this window. The extensions are not evaluated by Oracle but available. The details of available extensions are as follows: OrindaBuild Java Code Generator version 6.1.20090331 shown in the next figure.
The JTDS DBC Driver version 11.1.58.17 shown in the next figure.
The MYSQL JDBC driver shown in the next figure:
The last one is a patch for the Oracle SQL Developer to fix some of the import, LDAP and performance issues as shown.
For this article only the JTDS JDBC driver for MS SQL Server and the MySQL JDBC options were checked. The License agreements are for the JTDS drivers. Click Next. The License agreements must be accepted. Click I Agree. Click Next. This is the download step of the wizard. To proceed further you must have the Oracle Web Account username and password. Here you have the option to signup as well. After a while the new extensions are downloaded as shown in the next figure.
Click Finish to close the wizard. You need to restart SQL Developer to complete the installation of the extensions. Click Yes on the “Confirm Exit” window that shows up.
Now, when you click New Connection to create a new connection you display the “New / Select Database Connection” as shown. You can now see that other 3rd party databases are added to the window. Choose the tab for MySQL.
Fill in the required details as shown in the next figure appropriate for your MySQL installation. You must provide a name for the connection. Herein the connection is named, My_MySQL. The credentials must be provided as shown or that which is appropriate for your installation.
The port is the default designated for this server when you install the product. You may accept the other defaults on this page and click Test. The word “success” gets displayed in the status label at bottom left. The connection name and connection details gets added to the page shown above.