[Q] Stored procedures and external commands.

Is there any way to execute an external command from a stored procedure or function?

What I would like to be able to do is something like this:

create procedure print_report is
begin

   host /usr/local/bin/print_report
end;

however, this doesn't seem to work. If this is the wrong avenue totally, is there any way to execute an external command from inside Oracle (Oracle 7.1.4.1.1, PL/SQL 2.1.4.0.0) at all? Basically, what I'm trying to do is give some users (using Excel, Access, with ODBC calls to the database) to be able to launch a command to print a report from within their spreadsheet or whatever whithout having to log on to the machine to do it.

Thanks in advance.

Eric Ladner          | UNIX/Oracle/Passport Sys-Administration, General
clad_at_chevron.com     | Applications Development, etc., etc. 


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