Invoke shell script thru pl/sql

Question

Hi,
Is it possible to invoke a shell script thru a stored procedure? If possible how do we go about?
For example,
We have an application which has the following architecture:
Front End : Java (web enabled)
Middle Tier : Java web server 2.0
Back End : Oracle 8.1.6 on Solaris 2.7.
Our application needs sql loader to be invoked thru the web. For that there are two approaches.
1. Call the SQL Loader from front end itself. For this we need to have signed servlets etc., This seems quite complex because our back end and web server resides in two different solaris servers.
2. Call a stored procedure from front end which in turn calls the shell scripts which can in turn invoke sql loader etc.,
Do you have better solutions? Any suggestion will be deeply appreciated.
Thanks,
Raghu.

Answer 1

Dear Raghu,
As per my experience calling external procedures from oracle may cause some moderate-to-severe problems. I suggest an alternative solution which is the following:
1. Your PL/SQL program calls a C cartridge using ICX. The way it works is you call utl_http.request() or utl_http.request_pieces() if the amount of data to be passed back exceeds 2000 characters.
2. The C cartridge is basically "Hello WORLD" from Oracle examples. The only change is that you substitute the WRB_printf("Hello World") with popen("script.ksh",...)
3. This way the C cartridge calls your shell script.
--PL/SQL
BEGIN
utl_http.request(...); --> calls C
END;
/* C cartridge
popen("script.ksh",...) /* --> Calls shell */
#Shell script1.ksh --> calls sqlldr
sqlldr ...
P.S. You gotta have at least Oracle 7.3.4 with the OAS at least 3.02