Snapshot Refresh from a Trigger

I need to refresh a snapshot when certain column values are changed. The logical place would be in an UPDATE database trigger you would expect. Wrong. The DBMS_SNAPSHOT.REFRESH procedure has a COMMIT embedded somewhere in it, so it can't be called from a trigger.

The only alternative is to call it from Oracle Forms when the field value changes. This is far from ideal, though as the forms session will have to wait until the refresh is complete before continuing.

Here's the puzzle then. Is it possible to spawn a process in the database (eg database procedure) and then forget about it and continue, for example as with Unix. Or is there some other clever way round this problem ?

Any Clues.

Cheers Alan. Received on Tue Nov 07 1995 - 00:00:00 CET