Returning Oracle Variable to the Shell

Greetings,

I'm trying to return a value from Oracle to a shell script. Here is an excerpt:

        SysLog "Executing  sqlplus -s User <$DB_USER>/<$ORAPASS>"
        sqlplus -s $DB_USER/$ORAPASS <<ORA_EOF > ${MAILFILE} 2>&1
            set echo on
            begin
               select to_date(run_date,'DD/MM/YYYY') + 1
               into ${RUN_DATE}
               from run_details;
            end;
            /
ORA_EOF
        code=$?
        SysLog "Got a run date of ${RUN_DATE} from Database"
        if [ $code -ne 0 ] ; then
            LogError "GetRunDate failed, code ($code)"
            exit 1
        fi

Problem: It does not populate the shell-variable $RUN_DATE from the database as I would expect. I want to get a value from the database and use it within my shell script. I'm missing something obvious here. (can this be done??).

Any help appreciated. Received on Tue Apr 17 2001 - 23:15:48 CDT