How to call a shell script from PLSQL program

Question

Could you please let me know how to call a shell script from PLSQL program?

Answer 1

You have a couple of options available:

1. Invoke a Java method from within a PL/SQL wrapper.
2. Call a C program as an external procedure from within PL/SQL.
3. Use the new DBMS_SCHEDULER package.

Here's a link with INFO on them.

Answer 2

And a forth way (on top of Pablo's) dbms_pipe

---

http://asktom.oracle.com/pls/apex/f?p=100:11:0::::P11_QUESTION_ID:16212348050

In Oracle7.0 and up, we can use dbms_pipes to talk to a daemon running outside the database. Here is a simple example that uses sqlplus to be the daemon:

create or replace procedure host( cmd in varchar2 )
as
    status number;
begin
    dbms_pipe.pack_message( cmd );
    status := dbms_pipe.send_message( 'HOST_PIPE' );
    if ( status <> 0 ) then raise_application_error( -20001, 'Pipe error' );
    end if;
end;
/