Re: How to print something in PL/SQL

> Oracle, in their infinite wisdom, has deemed it appropriate that PL/SQL
> have no native print utilities. A rather hideous means of "printing"
> is to write results to a table and then print them out with a select
> statement following the PL/SQL script. But this is horrible (and costly
> in terms of extra database access) alternative to a print statement.

I think that they actually are worried about supporting the I/O now that they've introduced stored procedures because the interface would have to be in the Kernel itself.

I've been toying with the idea that SQL*Connect could be used to write output from within PL/SQL but you would have to define a "table" to SQL*Connect that is really an OS output stream. Unfortunately, we don't have SQL*Connect/RMS here so I can't play with it.

Another alternative would be to invoke SQL*Forms3 from inside SQL*Plus to do the PL/SQL stuff (with messages) but that's taking a sledge hammer to the problem and would probably not work too well.

At the moment, if you want output then you go thru tables OR use a 3GL.

-- 

Bruce...        pihlab_at_hhcs.gov.au
                 ^^
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* Bruce Pihlamae  --  Database Administration                     *
* Commonwealth Department of Health, Housing & Community Services *
* Canberra, Australia                             (W) 06-289-7056 *
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* These are my own thoughts and opinions, few that I have.        *
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