Oracle’s Wrap Utility

One thing that Oracle and
UPS have in common is that they both deal with wrapped packages. Why bother
with wrapping packages? One obvious reason is to hide the contents from prying
eyes. You can wrap a real package with nondescript wrapping paper or use
transparent cellophane. This idea of a choice between hiding and exposing
packages (and other objects) in Oracle serves the same purpose as wrapping your
UPS package – you do not want prying eyes to see what’s in your Oracle package.

The PL/SQL Wrap Utility

Appendix C of the Oracle 9.2
PL/SQL User’s Guide and Reference covers the wrap utility. With many
applications, it is common to see directories full of source code. Businesses
can protect their intellectual property by taking proactive measures to protect
and safeguard copyrighted material. If a company suspects copyright
infringement is occurring, it is up to the company to seek legal remedies. This
approach to protecting intellectual property (source code) is similar to
closing the barn door after the cows have left. Perhaps the sheer number of
files and lines of code serves as a deterrent to this type of theft.

If you or your company has
developed algorithms that give your product a competitive edge in the
marketplace, it makes sense that you would want to protect that code. All that
needs to be exposed is the input. The internals of what happens to that input
or how the output is produced can be likened to the black box approach in
testing. With Oracle’s wrap utility, you can turn the inner workings of your
code into an impenetrable black box, for the most part, to protect your
property.

The "for the most part"
caveat serves to alert you that wrap has some limitations. The reference guide,
in part, states, "String literals, number literals and names of variables,
tables and columns remain in plain text within the wrapped file. Wrapping a
procedure helps to hide the algorithm and prevent reverse-engineering, but it
is not a way to hide passwords or table names that you want to be secret."

Oracle allows you to wrap
the code inside the following statements:


CREATE [OR REPLACE] FUNCTION function_name
CREATE [OR REPLACE] PROCEDURE procedure_name
CREATE [OR REPLACE] PACKAGE package_name
CREATE [OR REPLACE] PACKAGE BODY package_name
CREATE [OR REPLACE] TYPE type_name … OBJECT
CREATE [OR REPLACE] TYPE BODY type_name

A common practice is to
leave specifications unwrapped and to wrap the implementation of procedures and
functions within the package body.

Running the Wrap Utility

Wrapping a package is
amazingly simple, although there is one pitfall to avoid. Among the 500 plus
files in the ORACLE_HOME/bin directory you will see wrap or WRAP depending on
your operating system (a lot of the more common files and directories on
Windows are upper-cased for ease of readability and identification).

Using wrap is as simple as
this:

c:ora9ibin wrap iname=input_file_name 

You can specify an output
file as a second argument by using this format:

c:ora9ibin wrap iname=input_file_name oname=output_file_name

Once wrapped, a package
cannot be unwrapped. With that in mind, and just like what you would do with a
real package, do not wrap the package until it is time to ship it. This implies
keeping a source code repository of the original code. If a customer or user
reports a bug against a wrapped package, there is no unwrapping it at the
customer’s site. You are going to have to ship another wrapped package with the
fix in it. You will be making the bug fix or enhancement with the repository
file and wrapping the new file.

An Example of Using Wrap

In a previous article, I
used the DBMS_RANDOM package. A slightly modified bit of code from that
produces the following:


SQL> CREATE or REPLACE PROCEDURE wrap_it (seed_in NUMBER)
2 IS
3 v_rand INTEGER;
4 BEGIN
5 DBMS_RANDOM.INITIALIZE (seed_in);
6 FOR i IN 1..5 LOOP
7 v_rand := mod(abs(DBMS_RANDOM.RANDOM),45);
8 dbms_output.put_line(i||’: ‘||v_rand);
9 END LOOP;
10 END;
11 /

Procedure created.

SQL> exec wrap_it(123456);
1: 37
2: 36
3: 18
4: 8
5: 32

PL/SQL procedure successfully completed.

I can take the code for the
wrap_it procedure and, well, wrap it. The code for the procedure is in a file
named wrap_example.sql.


C:ora9i>wrap iname=c:ora9iadminwrap_example.sql

PL/SQL Wrapper: Release 10.1.0.2.0- Production on Thu Jul 15 22:11:18 2004

Copyright (c) 1993, 2004, Oracle. All rights reserved.

Processing c:ora9iadminwrap_example.sql to wrap_example.plb

Note how Oracle changed the
file extension to "plb." Can we see the contents of the
wrap_example.plb file? Sure, but will it be completely readable? Let’s find
out.

Opening wrap_example.plb in
my general-purpose text editor (TextPad, www.textpad.com,
it’s free, but worth paying for a license), we see the following lines of text:


CREATE or REPLACE PROCEDURE wrap_it wrapped
a000000
b2
abcd
abcd
abcd
abcd
abcd
abcd
abcd
abcd
abcd
abcd
abcd
abcd
abcd
abcd
abcd
7
e0 f7
uveH+zmPD1snPwtBZmL3T1hkxRcwgy7w154VfC9GAME+MzyOFMq0DNYH29gBazqoJJQ0Xemb
pdRvlWrC2UeKeKiS2uzT80HMAvKIMOYhjXZT4CrU98zgprrwl4jKnFKvFljUAnGx8GHexDSU
XRa3oykCJIUWEovu72mqAm0vttgZB9E/9E6y2HhxKdu1k8arcrHegHYAvF1pwn1e6sCFJg04
QGsN1g1JLYIklPGBDEEZInWt0w==

/

That looks fairly
undecipherable to me. One thing to note is the location of the output file.
Using the example above, the new wrap_example.plb file was created in the
c:ora9i (my ORACLE_HOME) directory.

Now we know the procedure works and that the file or script can be wrapped.
I will drop the procedure and re-create it using the plb file. If all goes
well, I should be able to execute the procedure as before.


SQL> drop procedure wrap_it;

Procedure dropped.

SQL> @c:ora9iwrap_example.plb

Procedure created.

SQL> exec wrap_it(123456);
1: 37
2: 36
3: 18
4: 8
5: 32

PL/SQL procedure successfully completed.

In Closing

The wrap utility is very
easy to use, so if you have code you would like to protect, wrap it up. If the
uncompiled or unwrapped version passes testing, so will the wrapped version
because Oracle guarantees portability of the code.

What are some situations
where you would want to wrap your code? Schema migration or alteration
immediately comes to mind. Often times when there is a database migration
(going to a newer version), you will find application developers or software
manufacturers releasing a newer version of their product. The point release or
major release version probably incorporates schema changes. Running wrapped
update scripts helps protect your work. Keep in mind, though, that if a
malicious user is dedicated enough, pretty much any schema can be reverse
engineered, but why make it easy for him? Wrap it up and protect your work. And
that’s a wrap.

»


See All Articles by Columnist
Steve Callan

Steve Callan
Steve Callan
Steve is an Oracle DBA (OCP 8i and 9i)/developer working in Denver. His Oracle experience also includes Forms and Reports, Oracle9iAS and Oracle9iDS.

Get the Free Newsletter!

Subscribe to Cloud Insider for top news, trends & analysis

Latest Articles