DBIx::OracleSequence -- an interface to Oracle sequences via DBD-Oracle

   Copyright (c) 1999 Doug Bloebaum. All rights reserved. This program is
   free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the same
   terms as Perl itself.

*** *BEFORE* BUILDING, TESTING AND INSTALLING this you will need to:

    Build, test and install Perl 5
      (see http://www.perl.com/pub/language/info/software.html)

    Build, test and install the latest DBI module
      (see http://www.perl.com/CPAN-local/authors/id/TIMB/)

    Build, test and install the latest DBD-Oracle module
      (see http://www.perl.com/CPAN-local/authors/id/TIMB/)

    Have access to an Oracle Database server
    
    DBIx::OracleSequence is useless without all of the above!

INSTALLING

    perl Makefile.PL
    make
    export ORACLE_USERID=user/password@SID # defaults to scott/tiger
    make test
    make install

DBIx::OracleSequence - interface to Oracle sequences via DBI.  A sequence is
    a database object from which multiple users may generate unique
    integers. You might use sequences to automatically generate primary key
    values.  See:

    http://technet.oracle.com/doc/server.815/a68003/01_03sch.htm#1203

    for the full story on Oracle sequences.  Note that you must register to
    access this URL, but registration is free.

SYNOPSIS

    use DBIx::OracleSequence;

    $oracleDbh = DBI->connect("dbi:Oracle:SID", 'login', 'password');

    my $seq = new DBIx::OracleSequence($oracleDbh,'my_sequence_name');

    $seq->create();                 # create a new sequence with default parms
    $seq->incrementBy(5);           # alter the seq to increment by 5

    my $nextVal = $seq->nextval();  # get the next sequence value
    my $currval = $seq->currval();  # retrieve the current sequence value
    $seq->print();                  # print information about the sequence

    # connect to a sequence that already exists
    my $seq2 = new DBIx::OracleSequence($oracleDbh,'preexisting_seq');
    $seq2->print();
    $seq2->drop();                  # get rid of it

NOTE

The constructor is lazy, so if you want to alter the defaults for a sequence,
you need to use the maxvalue(), cache(), incrementBy(), etc. methods after
constructing your sequence.

You can access an existing Oracle sequence by calling the constructor with
the existing sequence name as the second parameter.  To create a new
sequence, call the constructor with your new sequence name as the second
parameter, then call the create() method.

The OracleSequence object holds no state about the Oracle sequence (well,
except for its name.) Instead it just serves as a passthrough to the Oracle
DDL to create, drop, set and get information about a sequence.

AUTHOR

Doug Bloebaum - bloebaum@dma.org