Installing Oracle 11g InstantClient

I've recently begun using the Oracle InstantClient as opposed to the full client install for two reasons:

1. Smaller footprint (42MB for 11.1.0.7.0)
2. No Windows restart required (great for production environments)
3. Really simple installation...

Installation Procedure

1. Download the InstantClient zip folder (http://www.oracle.com/technology/software/products/database)
2. Unzip the folder to a location of your choice
3. Add that folder to the 'path' environment variable
4. If you are using TNSNAMES, add the location of the tnsnames.ora file to the TNS_ADMIN environment variable

Worked a treat for getting ASP.NET 3.5 and SQL Server Reporting Services 2005 up and running with Oracle connectivity.

Oracle <-> SQL Server Equivalents

A growing list of comparitive SQL functions for transition from Oracle to SQL Server:

Replacing Null Values
Oracle: NVL(field1, 'THIS IS NULL')
SQL Server: ISNULL(field1, 'THIS IS NULL')

Rownum
Oracle: rownum
SQL Server: row_number() over(ORDER BY field1)

Replace Characters in String
Oracle: REPLACE(field1, ';', ',')
SQL Server: REPLACE(field1, ';', ',')

Replace New Line Characters in String (CHR vs. CHAR)
Oracle: REPLACE(REPLACE(REPLACE(field1, CHR(10), ' '), CHR(13), ' '), CHR(9), ' ')
SQL Server: REPLACE(REPLACE(REPLACE(field1, CHAR(10), ' '), CHAR(13), ' '), CHAR(9), ' ')

ToChar for DD/MM/YYYY HH24:MM:SS
Oracle: TO_CHAR(datefield1,'dd/mm/yyyy hh24:mm:ss')
SQL Server: convert(varchar,datefield1,103) + ' ' + convert(varchar,datefield1,108)

Outer Join
Oracle: table1.id =+ table2.id
SQL Server: table1.id =* table2.id

'IN' List
Oracle: IN list limited to 1000 expressions
SQL Server: 18,000 didn't hit any limits!

Decode
Oracle: Decode(field1,'Yes','Y','N')
SQL Server: CASE field1 WHEN 'Yes' THEN 'Y' ELSE 'N' END AS "Field 1"

Query Oracle Character Set

Logged in with SYSDBA priveleges:

select SYS.PROPS$.VALUE$ from SYS.PROPS$ where ((SYS.PROPS$.NAME = 'NLS_CHARACTERSET')) ;