Invoking a UNIX shell command from Java stored procedure

Question

The program below is suppose do send an email using UNIX mailx program. It works correctly when I compile it in UNIX and invoke it from the command line by sending an email to the given address.
I need this program to run as a stored procedure, however. I deploy it as such and try to invoke it. It prints the results correctly to the standard output. It does not send any emails, however. One other difference in execution is that when invoked from the command line, the program takes about a minute to return. When invoked as a stored procedure in PL/SQL program or SQL*Plus anonymous block, it returns immediately.
Why would mailx invocation not work from a stored procedure? Are there other ways to invoke mailx from PL/SQL?
Thank you.
Michael
import java.io.BufferedWriter;
import java.io.IOException;
import java.io.OutputStreamWriter;
public class MailUtility
public static void main(String[] args)
System.out.println(mailx("Hey, there", "Hello", "oracle@solaris10ora", 1));
* Sends a message using UNIX mailx command.
* @param message message contents
* @param subject message subject
* @param addressee message addressee
* @param display if greater than 0, display the command
* @return OS process return code
public static int mailx(String message, String subject,
String addressee, int display)
System.out.println("In mailx()");
try
String command =
"echo \"" + message + "\" | mailx -r [email protected]" + " -s \"" + subject + "\" " + addressee;
if (display > 0)
System.out.println(command);
try
Process process = Runtime.getRuntime().exec("/bin/bash");
BufferedWriter outCommand =
new BufferedWriter(new OutputStreamWriter(process.getOutputStream()));
outCommand.write(command, 0, command.length());
outCommand.newLine();
outCommand.write("exit", 0, 4);
outCommand.newLine();
outCommand.flush();
process.waitFor();
outCommand.close();
return process.exitValue();
catch (IOException e)
e.printStackTrace();
return -1;
catch (Exception e)
e.printStackTrace();
return -1;

Answer 1

try adding the full explicit path to "mailx" in the command string that gets sent to Runtime. i would guess that the shell that gets spawned might not have a proper environment and thus mailx might not be found.
== sfisque