Re: Newbie question - how do I choose my working directory?

Paul (Gan_spam_ar_bith_at_ireland.com) wrote:

: yf110_at_vtn1.victoria.tc.ca (Malcolm Dew-Jones) wrote:

: >2)

: >In the windows version of sqlplus, you can also set your current directory
: >after you start as follows
: > use the menus
: > file:Spool:Spool File...
: > navigate to a directory, enter a spool file name, and press SAVE
: > That will now be the working directory for sqlplus.
: > You may wish to close the spool file, it doesn't matter either way
: > SQL> spool off

: This worked fine and is good. The only problem that I have now is that
: I still cannot cd into another directory. I suppose I could open
: another spoolfile, but it does seem rather odd that one can't navigate
: using host cd x:\YYY\zZZ

What is odd? The host command starts a program known as a command line interpreter, also called a shell, and on windows often refered to as a dos-box. You are then telling that program (the dos box) to use a certain directory as its working directory. If you then did anything else within the dos-box then you would find that the dos-box has indeed navigated to the new directory just like you asked it to.

You wouldn't expect Tool:Spell-Check in MSWord to magically start spell checking your sqlplus commands - why do you expect your dos-box instructions to magically control sqlplus?

If you want sqlplus to navigate to a different directory then you must send your instructs to the sqlplus program. It so happens that sqlplus does not have a command to do that, but it does have other commands that have that result as a side effect of their main purpose.

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