Resetting Your Oracle User Password with SQL Developer on OSX

This post started as a shameless copy of Jeff Smiths Resetting Your Oracle User Password with SQL Developer - but it ended in a trilogy about OSX, Oracle and SQLDeveloper.
In my first two posts I made myself comfortable with Oracle instant client on my MacBook. Now I want to use it for something more serious, like changing passwords.

Even with all the modifications from previous post SQLDeveloper still does not show the Reset Password... option. The reason: it just don't know about the library correctly.

First the PATH as shown in previous post is not set in an application started via launcher - It does not contain the ORACLE_HOME at all. But even as I forced that with a temporary hack it did not help; so I just can say: with OSX it's more complicated to let SQLDeveloper use the proper libraries.

As the PATH is not that important on OSX, the real issue is DYLD_LIBRARY_PATH. Regardless if it's set in /etc/profiles or ~/.profiles - they never reach an application started via launcher, probably for similar reasons like PATH shown above.

But there is hope: ORACLE_HOME as set in /etc/launchd.conf is shown in the environment of SQLDeveloper. At the end, that's all we need, now just to check where to put this little flame of hope to let it grow to a bonfire.

From now on I'm talking about SQLDeveloper 3.2.20.09! Future Versions might behave different!

The script to check is
/Applications/SQLDeveloper.app/Contents/Resources/sqldeveloper/ide/bin/launcher.sh. There is a function called CheckLibraryPath() which is supposed to check for a proper LD_LIBRARY_PATH (or it's equivalences) and if not set create a proper setting. Oracle just forgot to check about OSX! I write forgot on purpose, as HP-UX is checked with
if [ `uname -s` = 'HP-UX' ] and SHLIB_PATH is set instead of LD_LIBRARY_PATH.

So my solution is simple: I just enhance this function with this little patch:

524a525,541
>  elif [ `uname -s` = 'Darwin' ]
>  then
>   echo "OSX!"
>   if [ "X$DYLD_LIBRARY_PATH" = "X" ]
>  then
>   DYLD_LIBRARY_PATH=$ORACLE_HOME
>   #  only instant client exists on OSX
>  else
>   echo $DYLD_LIBRARY_PATH | egrep -e "(^|\:)$ORACLE_HOME($|\:)" > /dev/null
>   if [ $? != 0 ]
>   then
>    DYLD_LIBRARY_PATH=$DYLD_LIBRARY_PATH:$ORACLE_HOME
>   fi
> 
>  fi
>  export DYLD_LIBRARY_PATH
>  #echo "$DYLD_LIBRARY_PATH"

With this little patch now I can change the password of my users with SQLDeveloper on OSX!