oracledb

A pure Dart Oracle Database driver implementing the thin-mode TNS/TTC wire protocol. No Oracle Client libraries required.

Alpha — public API may change between releases. Epics 1 & 2 (connection, auth, queries, DML, transactions) are stable. PL/SQL, LOBs, and connection pooling are not yet implemented. Pin to an exact version (oracledb: 0.1.0-alpha.1) until 1.0.

This is NOT an official Oracle product. It is an independent Dart port of the thin-client wire protocol as documented and implemented in Oracle's official node-oracledb driver. Oracle Corporation is not affiliated with this project.

Features

• Pure Dart — no FFI, no native code, no Oracle Instant Client required
• Thin protocol — direct TNS/TTC wire protocol implementation
• Oracle 23ai + Oracle 21c — tested against both; FAST_AUTH and classical auth paths both supported
• All Dart platforms — macOS, Windows, Linux, iOS, Android (not web — requires TCP sockets)
• TLS/SSL — encrypted connections with certificate validation
• Full query support — SELECT, INSERT, UPDATE, DELETE with positional and named bind parameters
• Transactions — commit, rollback, and transaction helper
• Statement caching — transparent prepared-statement cache
• Async/await — modern Dart async API throughout

Platform Support

Platform	Supported
macOS	✅
Windows	✅
Linux	✅
iOS	✅
Android	✅
Web	❌ (requires raw TCP sockets via dart:io)

Supported Oracle Versions

• Oracle 23ai — FAST_AUTH protocol (single-round-trip authentication)
• Oracle 21c — classical AUTH_PHASE_ONE / AUTH_PHASE_TWO

Older versions (19c, 12c) may work but have not been tested.

Installation

Add to your pubspec.yaml:

dependencies:
  oracledb: ^0.1.0

Then run:

dart pub get

Quick Start

import 'package:oracledb/oracledb.dart';

Future<void> main() async {
  final connection = await OracleConnection.connect(
    'localhost:1521/FREEPDB1',
    user: 'testuser',
    password: 'testpassword',
  );

  try {
    final result = await connection.execute(
      'SELECT employee_id, first_name FROM employees WHERE department_id = :dept',
      {'dept': 10},
    );

    for (final row in result.rows) {
      print('${row['EMPLOYEE_ID']}: ${row['FIRST_NAME']}');  // by name
      // or: row[0], row[1]                                  // by index
    }
  } finally {
    await connection.close();
  }
}

Usage

Connecting

connect takes an EZ Connect string (host:port/service) as the first argument:

final conn = await OracleConnection.connect(
  'dbhost.example.com:1521/ORCL',
  user: 'username',
  password: 'password',
  timeout: const Duration(seconds: 30),
);

Auto-closing with withConnection

await OracleConnection.withConnection(
  'localhost:1521/FREEPDB1',
  user: 'testuser',
  password: 'testpassword',
  callback: (conn) async {
    final result = await conn.execute('SELECT SYSDATE FROM dual');
    print(result.rows.first[0]);
  },
);

Queries

// Named bind parameters (preferred)
final result = await connection.execute(
  'SELECT * FROM employees WHERE salary > :min_salary AND department_id = :dept',
  {'min_salary': 50000, 'dept': 10},
);

// Positional bind parameters
final result2 = await connection.execute(
  'SELECT * FROM employees WHERE salary > :1 AND department_id = :2',
  [50000, 10],
);

// Access rows and column metadata
print(result.columnNames);      // ['EMPLOYEE_ID', 'FIRST_NAME', ...]
for (final row in result.rows) {
  print(row['EMPLOYEE_ID']);    // by column name (case-insensitive)
  print(row[0]);                // or by zero-based index
  final map = row.toMap();      // {'EMPLOYEE_ID': 100, 'FIRST_NAME': 'Alice', ...}
}

DML — Insert, Update, Delete

final result = await connection.execute(
  'UPDATE employees SET salary = salary * 1.1 WHERE department_id = :dept',
  {'dept': 10},
);
print('Rows affected: ${result.rowsAffected}');

Transactions

// Managed transaction (automatic rollback on exception)
await connection.runTransaction((conn) async {
  await conn.execute(
    'INSERT INTO orders (id, customer_id) VALUES (:id, :cust)',
    {'id': 1001, 'cust': 42},
  );
  await conn.execute(
    'UPDATE inventory SET quantity = quantity - 1 WHERE product_id = :pid',
    {'pid': 100},
  );
});

// Manual commit/rollback
try {
  await connection.execute(
    'INSERT INTO orders (id, total) VALUES (:id, :total)',
    {'id': 1001, 'total': 99.99},
  );
  await connection.commit();
} catch (e) {
  await connection.rollback();
  rethrow;
}

TLS/SSL Connections

import 'package:oracledb/oracledb.dart';

// TLS with certificate validation (recommended for production)
final conn = await OracleConnection.connect(
  'dbhost.example.com:2484/ORCL',
  user: 'username',
  password: 'password',
  tls: TlsConfig.enabled(),
);

// TLS with self-signed certificates (development)
final devConn = await OracleConnection.connect(
  'localhost:2484/FREEPDB1',
  user: 'testuser',
  password: 'testpassword',
  tls: TlsConfig.enabled(verifyCertificate: false),
);

Oracle typically uses port 2484 for TLS connections. TLS is disabled by default.

Health Check

final isAlive = await connection.ping();

API Reference

Method	Description
OracleConnection.connect(...)	Open a connection
OracleConnection.withConnection(...)	Open, use, and auto-close a connection
connection.execute(sql, [bindValues])	Run a query or DML statement
connection.ping()	Send a ping to verify the connection is alive
connection.commit()	Commit the current transaction
connection.rollback()	Roll back the current transaction
connection.runTransaction(callback)	Run a callback inside a managed transaction
connection.close()	Close the connection
connection.isConnected	Whether the connection is open
connection.isHealthy	Synchronous connection state check (no network I/O)
connection.statementCacheSize	Configured statement cache size

Supported Data Types

Oracle Type	Dart Type
VARCHAR2, CHAR, NVARCHAR2	String
NUMBER	num / int / double
DATE	DateTime
TIMESTAMP	DateTime
RAW	Uint8List
NULL	null

Project Status

This package implements a subset of the full Oracle driver feature set. Below is the current roadmap:

Epic	Status
Core connection & authentication	✅ Done
Query execution & transactions	✅ Done
PL/SQL execution (stored procedures, functions)	🔄 In progress
Advanced data types (CLOB, BLOB, RAW, JSON)	📋 Planned
Connection pooling	📋 Planned

Tests

The project has an extensive test suite:

• ~490 unit tests — covering protocol, crypto, transport, and connection layers
• Integration tests — run against real Oracle instances via Docker

# Unit tests (no database required)
dart test test/src/

# Integration tests — Oracle 23ai
docker compose up -d
RUN_INTEGRATION_TESTS=true dart test test/integration/

# Integration tests — Oracle 21c
docker compose --profile oracle21c up -d
RUN_INTEGRATION_TESTS=true ORACLE_PORT=1522 ORACLE_SERVICE=XEPDB1 dart test test/integration/

Thin Mode Limitations

This driver implements Oracle's thin-mode protocol. The following features require Oracle Client (thick mode) and are not supported:

• SODA (Simple Oracle Document Access)
• Continuous Query Notification (CQN)
• External/Kerberos authentication
• Native Network Encryption (NNE)
• Application Continuity
• Client Result Cache

Requirements

• Dart SDK >= 3.3.0
• Oracle Database 21c or later (older versions may work but are untested)

Contributing

See CONTRIBUTING.md for development setup, test instructions, and contribution guidelines.

License

Apache License 2.0 — see LICENSE for details.

Acknowledgments

• node-oracledb — Oracle's official Node.js driver, whose thin-client protocol implementation this project ports to Dart
• python-oracledb — Oracle's official Python driver, used as a cross-reference for protocol details
• Ian Redfern's TNS/TTC protocol documentation