Search code examples
sqlcoracle-databaseoracle-pro-c

How can I call a PRO*C program directly from PL/SQL?

I couldn't find a similar question here.

I have a PRO*C program named pro_c.pc. How can I call and execute this in a piece of PL/SQL code?! Could someone give me a simple example?!

Solution

  • You can link external libraries (Windows DLL or UNIX ".so" files) to Oracle and then make them callable via PLSQL. This has been around at least since Oracle 8i.

    This though requires DBA privs on the server to set this up, and is probably not a recommended approach these days .... but useful for crunching huge data.

    See here for more details.

    Calling a actual program directly, as opposed to a library function from PLSQL would be done indirectly via DBMS_SCHEDULER as @Justin suggested as the easiest way, creating a program with the PROGRAM_TYPE as EXECUTABLE. See here for more info.

    A couple of things to note when doing this, the program will run as the (assuming UNIX) "oracle" user - bringing with it some security considerations, e.g. if the program creates a file it will be created as owned by oracle, and so might not be accessible to an "application" user. The program will run on the Oracle database server.