# Please help!

**URL:** <https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/please-help/124406>\
**Category:** Ruby\
**Created:** [December 28, 2007, 1:15pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/please-help/124406 "2007-12-28T13:15:54Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 2\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![pradeepta](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/p/ee59a6/32.png) [@pradeepta](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/pradeepta)\
**Post date:** [December 28, 2007, 1:15pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/please-help/124406/1 "2007-12-28T13:15:54Z")

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I have installed dbi,oci8,ruby 1.8.6 ,oracle client 9.2 on XP machine  
I have tried to connect a remote database using the code

dbh = DBI.connect(‘DBI:OCI8:ORCL’,‘ftdam’,‘ftdam’)

where ORCL is the configuration file tnsnames.ora file.  
but I am unable to connect .It is giving error like :

OCI Library Initialization Error

I can connect to the databse using same username ,password and  
host string 'ORCL 'in sqlplus .but can’t through ruby program ,Anybody  
help !!!

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![pradeepta](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/p/ee59a6/32.png) [@pradeepta](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/pradeepta)\
**Post date:** [December 28, 2007, 2:29pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/please-help/124406/2 "2007-12-28T14:29:31Z")

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-------- Original-Nachricht --------

> Datum: Fri, 28 Dec 2007 21:15:51 +0900  
> Von: Pradeepta S. [removed\_email\_address@domain.invalid](mailto:removed_email_address@domain.invalid)  
> An: removed\_email\_address@domain.invalid  
> Betreff: please help !

> I have installed dbi,oci8,ruby 1.8.6 ,oracle client 9.2 on XP machine  
> I have tried to connect a remote database using the code
> 
> dbh = DBI.connect(‘DBI:OCI8:ORCL’,‘ftdam’,‘ftdam’)

Dear Pradeepta,

please be more specific in your email headers - you’ll  
get more replies from people who are actually  
competent for your problem 🙂

From your error message, there appears to be a problem about the file  
oci8lib.so (see here:

[http://ruby-oci8.rubyforge.org/svn/tags/ruby-oci8-1.0.0-rc2/NEWS](http://ruby-oci8.rubyforge.org/svn/tags/ruby-oci8-1.0.0-rc2/NEWS) )

This article:

[http://wiki.rubyonrails.com/rails/pages/HowtoConnectToOracle](http://wiki.rubyonrails.com/rails/pages/HowtoConnectToOracle)

describes a way to connect to Oracle from Ruby on Rails  
( you don’t seem to be using it, but nevertheless), so  
assuming that you did everything right as described there and  
things don’t work nevertheless, I’d suggest you try out  
using ‘oracle’ rather than ‘oci’ as an adapter, which is supposed  
to be newer, as described here:

> **[How to change your Rails database adapter from OCI to Oracle](https://blog.andrewbeacock.com/2007/06/how-to-change-your-rails-database.html)**
>
> I've started to use Rails migrations recently connecting to an Oracle database. After reading many examples of how to configure the data...

Best regards,

Axel