User Programmatic Interface Explained

In computing, the User Programmatic Interface (UPI), also known as the User Program Interface, consists of a set of C-language software APIs which provide the lowest-level API-based interface to the Oracle database.

Overview

UPI offers a procedural API for not only performing certain database administration tasks (such as system startup and shutdown), but also for using PL/SQL or SQL to query, access, and manipulate data. The UPI library, an undocumented API used internally by Oracle, deals directly with the Two-Task Common (TTC)^[1] aspect of the Oracle Client software stack.

UPI-based applications

Several Oracle database applications depend on UPI, including:

• Oracle Forms
• SQL*Plus (also uses OCI)
• Oracle Corporation's data-import and -export (IMP/EXP) utilities

UPI-Based Libraries

Several libraries depend on UPI, including:

• Oracle's FormsAPI
• The Oracle Call Interface Library
• Oracle's SQLLIB (used by Oracle's Embedded SQL Precompilers)

External links

• Oracle SQL*Net Overview (includes basic UPI information)

Notes and References

1. Book: Achacoso , Robwert . Oracle Database Net Services Administrator's Guide 11g Release 2 (11.2). 2010-02-14. December 2009. Oracle Corporation. Two-Task Common (TTC)[:] A presentation layer type [...] used in a typical Oracle Net connection to provide character set and data type conversion between different character sets or formats on the client and server.. etal.