How to execute a .SQL script file?

Question

Hi
I'm sure this question has been answered already, however I was unable to find an answer using the search tool.
Using c# I'd like to run a .sql file. The sql file contains multiple sql statements, some of which are broken over multiple lines. I tried reading in the file and tried executing the file using ODP.NET ... however I don't think ExecuteNonQuery is really designed to do this.
So I tried using sqlplus via spawning a process ... however unless I spawned the process with UseShellExecute set to true sqlplus would hang and never exit. Here's the code that DOESN'T WORK.
Process p = new Process();
p.StartInfo.UseShellExecute = false;
p.StartInfo.RedirectStandardOutput = true;
p.StartInfo.FileName = "sqlplus";
p.StartInfo.Arguments = string.Format("xx/xx@{0} @{1}", in_database, s);
p.StartInfo.CreateNoWindow = true;
bool started = p.Start();
p.WaitForExit();
WaitForExit never returns .... Unless I set UseShellExecute to true. A side effect of UseShellExecute is that you can no capture the redirected output.
This must be such a common thing to do, I'm hoping someone has a solution to this.
Thanks
Rich

Answer 1

If by "SQL script" you mean run a program that resides outside the database (a file of the format whatever.sql) then the answer is with difficulty. We can use extproc calls to run c libraries or embedded java to execute host-style commands but it's a lot of pfaffing about.
The easiest solution is to bring the SQL commands into the database as a stored procedure. If you still need to be able to run the script externally then rewrite that to call the same stored procedure. However, if the .SQL file includes OS calls then you will have to choose either Java or extproc, depending on what it is the script actuually does. If you want more focused advice you'll need to give us details.
Cheers, APC