Re: Help with UTL_TCP

In article <9m5174$44p$1_at_ctb-nnrp1.saix.net>, "Billy says...
>
>"Thomas Kyte" <tkyte_at_us.oracle.com> wrote
>
>> >I wish to do FTP/ Telnet using UTL_TCP. Did anyone try this before? If so,
>> >can you pl. give me some examples.
>>
>> While technically possible, it would not be practical to do that. I've never
>> implemented the FTP protocol but I have an inkling that it would take more
>then
>> an afternoon.
>
>Agree. FTP is no trivial matter, unless you rather choose to implement Trivial
>FTP :-)
>(see the RFC's for the protocol definition of trivial ftp).
>
>The question I have though is why would you want to implement FTP as a database
>service? I can see some possibilities (e.g. FTP'ing LOBs), but from an
>architectural point of view, networking services do _NOT_ IMO belong in a
>database.
>

everyone is entitled to them (opinions).

I rather like the simplicity of having every thing in one place. Do you believe databases should be able to send email? (I do, one of my databases sends about 500-1,000/day).

If email is OK, why not ftp? (hey database, everynight at midnight I'd like you to run this procedure that creates a csv file using utl_file and then ftps it to this other machine that is expecting it). True, we could do this outside the database but if you could do it in - why not? The script you develop for HP/UX as a cron job might (or not) work on AIX. You also have to have the requisite checks "is the database available" (a job will only run when it is). I can assure you the scripts you have for Solaris WON'T work on NT and so on.

Going further, why not IMAP (frequent request, I would like to archive emails sent to a public list and have interMedia index them). I do this on a site (www.promedmail.org). True, I could run a job using cron in the OS to periodically look for mail, retrieve the mail and insert the mail -- or I can write a stored procedure in PLSQL that calls a java stored proc that gets the mail and does the insert. dbms_job runs it for me and all is well in the world. No muss, no fuss -- no os interactions with the database (I cannot recall how many times I've forgotten to disable cron jobs -- if I can find them all -- when doing some maintenance. On the other hand, I cannot remember how many times I've forgotten to ENABLE them afterwards either).

>--
>Billy
>
>
>

--
Thomas Kyte (tkyte@us.oracle.com)             http://asktom.oracle.com/ 
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Opinions are mine and do not necessarily reflect those of Oracle Corp