Webutil_host.blocking( ) example needed * SOLVED *

Question

Hello, I need to get the name of the UNIX application server from my forms 10g program. I'm calling pid := webutil_host.blocking('uname -n') but it fails with a return code of 2 no matter how I format the command ('ksh -c "uname -n"', etc). subsequent calls to outp := webutil_host.get_standard_output(pid) or outp := webutil_host.get_standard_error(pid) don't seem to work either as trying to display outp(0), etc display nothing.
webutil functionality is not being called in pre-form or when-new-form-instance (before webutil is instantiated).
Can anyone point me to a working example of getting output from a UNIX command?
Thanks,
Gary

Answer 1

Ok, here's how I did it, turned out to be pretty simple:
FUNCTION get_oas_name RETURN varchar2 IS
  fp text_io.file_type;
  output varchar2(30);
BEGIN
  host('/bin/uname -n > /tmp/oasname');
  fp := text_io.fopen('/tmp/oasname','r');
  text_io.get_line(fp, output);
  text_io.fclose(fp);
  return output;
END;Gary