Passing parameters to Oracle report from VMS DCL file in BATCH mode?

Hi all:

This is a slightly modified repost of an article I posted to the comp.databases.oracle newsgroup -- I didn't get much of a response to my query and as this is probably more VAX related than anything else I thought I'd try my luck again.

I have several Oracle .RPT (report) programs I have written that prompt the user to enter a value (such as period end date).

This works fine for interactive use, but I also need to be able to run these reports in BATCH mode. For each report, I have a .COM file that gets the appropriate values from the user, and then submits the report to a batch queue. Trouble is, I really have no idea how to pass the parameter so that it will be accepted by the .RPT report as a user-entered value.

Is there a way to "push" the value onto SYS$INPUT or something like that? I haven't had much luck with the $DECK ... $EOD commands but maybe I'm using them wrong.

Here's a code snippet from the .COM file:

$ write sys$output "Parm P1 (pay period end date) = "+P1
$ rpt myreport.rpt myreport.rpf 'oracle_password'
$ ''P1'

$! Rest of code follows...
$ exit

I thought the "$ ''P1'" might have worked, since I've had limited success with this technique in other areas, but RPT doesn't seem to like it.

I need to find a way to do this using standard VAX tools (DCL would be most preferred) as I am a weaselly end-user who does *not* have access to any other language tools ('cept maybe MACRO :-) ).

I'd rather find a better way of doing this than having to use SQL*Plus to create and load a table, extract the value, and then drop the table.

Any information you can provide would be most appreciated. Please respond via e-mail if at all possible.

Thanks in advance!

Steve Frampton             Preferred: <frampton_at_vicuna.ocunix.on.ca>
Kingston, Ontario          Alternate: <2843600_at_jeff-lab.queensu.ca>