Calling SQL statement from a script problem

Question

Hello,
I have a script e.g query.sh:
#!/bin/sh
sqlplus -s ${ORACLE_USER} << HIC
set heading off
set newpage none
SELECT 'ALTER TABLE '||'TEST_TABLE'||' ADD PARTITION '||' P'|| TO_CHAR(TRUNC(sysdate+7), 'IYYY')||'W'|| TO_CHAR(TRUNC(sysdate+7), 'IW')||' VALUES LESS THAN(TO_DATE('''|| TO_CHAR(sysdate + 14, 'YYYYMMDD')||''',''YYYYMMDD''));' FROM DUAL;
exit
HIC
This will actually give me: ALTER TABLE TEST_TABLE ADD PARTITION P2010W46 VALUES LESS THAN(TO_DATE('20101122','yyyymmdd'));
I am executing this output from the second script. e.g create_part.sh
#!/bin/sh
SQL=`/home/bill/scripts/query.sh`
sqlplus ${ORACLE_USER} << EOF
set serveroutput on size 1000000
set heading off
$SQL
exit
EOF
When I am running the 2nd script I am getting:
SQL> SQL> SQL> SQL> 2 ALTER TABLE test_table ADD PARTITION P2010W46 VALUES LESS THAN(TO_DATE('20101122','yyy
ERROR at line 1:
ORA-01861: literal does not match format string
I suspect that the output from the 1st script wraps to a second line, and it failes to execute properly.
Oracle is 9i
Please suggest a way to overcome this problem.
Thank you in advance.

Answer 1

If you are not passing in any variable values that you need the shell to substitute intot he source then placing the SQL into a separate .sql file and then just using start scriptname from the shell can simplify the code especially if any shell script meta-characters like '$' appear in the SQL. Otherwise you have to escape the meta-characters.
sqlplus /nolog <<EOF
start script_name
exit
EOF
It is also possible to write the sqlplus script to accept substitution variable from the caller so the line above would look like start script_name $var1 $var2
HTH -- Mark D Powell --