get pl/sql developer working without any oracle client

[Jeff Kish]

Hi.

I saw the post where you install instant client from oracle and set some environmentals to the 64 bit tnsnames.ora, but I don't have any oracle on my pc at all. I do connect to an oracle that is on a VM successfully using Oracle Sql Developer (jdbc I assume), but of course PL/SQL Developer is much better for certain things.

Is it possible to get PL/SQL Developer working with this configuration? Right now it seems I need some sort of tnsnames.ora file.. I don't see that with the unzipped instant client.

thanks
Jeff

 

[Marco Kalter]

You will at least need an Oracle Instant Client.

 

[Jeff Kish]

Well I have that but it isn't clear without a tnsnames.ora file how to proceed with it. The instructions I saw said to unzip the instant client into a subdirectory of the install of PL/SQL Developer, however then it mentioned setting enviornmental variables to the 64 bit client tnsnames.ora file which I don't have. Do I have to manufacture a tnsnames.ora file artificially and set an environmental variable to point to it?
thanks
jeff

 

[Marco Kalter]

You need some way to identify your databases (other than a complete address specification). You can indeed do so by creating a tnsnames.ora file and setting TNS_ADMIN to point to its directory.