Connecting to Oracle Database through C#?

Question

I need to connect to a Oracle DB (external) through Visual Studio 2010. But I dont want to install Oracle on my machine. In my project I referenced: System.Data.OracleClient. But its not fulfilling the need. I have an "Oracle SQL Developer IDE" in which I run SQL queries against oracle db.

I have this code so far:

 private static string GetConnectionString()     {         String connString = "host= serverName;database=myDatabase;uid=userName;pwd=passWord";         return connString;     }   private static void ConnectingToOracle()     {         string connectionString = GetConnectionString();         using (OracleConnection connection = new OracleConnection())         {             connection.ConnectionString = connectionString;             connection.Open();             Console.WriteLine("State: {0}", connection.State);             Console.WriteLine("ConnectionString: {0}",                               connection.ConnectionString);              OracleCommand command = connection.CreateCommand();             string sql = "SELECT * FROM myTableName";             command.CommandText = sql;              OracleDataReader reader = command.ExecuteReader();             while (reader.Read())             {                 string myField = (string)reader["MYFIELD"];                 Console.WriteLine(myField);             }         }     } 

So far I read these blogs:

http://st-curriculum.oracle.com/tutorial/DBXETutorial/index.htm

http://blogs.msdn.com/b/kaevans/archive/2009/07/18/connecting-to-oracle-from-visual-studio.aspx

So far I have not downloaded anything from Oracle. What steps should I take to make this happen?

Answer 1

First off you need to download and install ODP from this site http://www.oracle.com/technetwork/topics/dotnet/index-085163.html

After installation add a reference of the assembly Oracle.DataAccess.dll.

Your are good to go after this.

using System;  using Oracle.DataAccess.Client;   class OraTest {      OracleConnection con;      void Connect()      {          con = new OracleConnection();          con.ConnectionString = "User Id=<username>;Password=<password>;Data Source=<datasource>";          con.Open();          Console.WriteLine("Connected to Oracle" + con.ServerVersion);      }      void Close()      {         con.Close();          con.Dispose();      }       static void Main()      {          OraTest ot= new OraTest();          ot.Connect();          ot.Close();      }  }