Real-time Messaging in Oracle: Send E-mails Programmatically from the Database

ecause Oracle does not provide a tool for outputting messages in real-time, Oracle database developers have always faced the challenge of monitoring their stored procedure execution in real-time. They've had to use the DBMS_OUTPUT.PUT_LINE call, which doesn't return the results of a procedure until the procedure has completed.

In this 10-Minute Solution, I will demonstrate how you can send e-mails directly from an Oracle8i database as a real-time messaging solution. Besides no longer needing to wait for stored procedures to complete in order to monitor them, such a feature offers the developer a few other benefits:

• Debugging long batch processes in minutes rather than hours
• Calculating the execution times for specified code blocks
• Exporting selected data from the database and putting it in operating system (OS) text files, such as Excel spreadsheets.
• Reviewing stored procedure information remotely.

How do I output messages from my running stored procedures so I can review them in real-time—even when I'm not in the office?



Group all necessary procedures and functions in your custom package and send e-mail directly from an Oracle database using the Oracle8i UTL_SMTP supplied package.

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