Technical Background
Programming Languages
OraRep is written using PL/SQL and Unix Shell. While PL/SQL code is used to retrieve the information from the Oracle Database, Unix Shell code is used to construct the (anonymous) PL/SQL block (which is then executed) based on the users configuration. This way I realized the modular structure of OraRep, just including those constructs in the finally executed code that we really need to execute, thus limiting the overhead e.g. for unneeded parsing.
Requirements
The requirements can directly be derived from the above paragraph and the intended goal: First, you need an Oracle Database Server up and running, otherwise there's nothing we can retrieve the information to report on. Second, the instance(s) of this Database Server you want to report on need to have PL/SQL installed, otherwise the code generated by OraRep cannot be processed by them. And last but not least, you need a Unix Shell (OraRep was tested with Korn Shell in its early stages (i.e. up to OraRep v0.1.0), and later versions are approved to work fine with the Bash Shell). This does imply that OraRep does run in *nix environments (Linux, Solaris, AIX, etc. - successfully tested just with RedHat Linux 7.x, other reports are welcome). There are Shell environments available for Windows as well, like CygWin - but since I didn't test OraRep in those environments I cannot guarantee that it will run with those; again, reports are welcome.
Limitations
OraRep was tested successfully with Oracle versions 8.1.7, 9.0.1 and 9.2 - which does not necessarily mean it will not run with other versions. As always, reports are very welcome especially if you successfully use OraRep with Oracle versions < 8.1.7 or > 9.2, so I can correct this limitation here. For other limitations, please read the previous paragraph (Shell, PL/SQL, OSes).
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