About Building External Procedures

Describes how to create and use external procedures on Windows.

The following files are located in ORACLE_HOME\rdbms\extproc:

• extern.c is the code example shown in "Writing an External Procedure"

  make.bat is the batch file that builds the dynamic link library

• extern.sql automates the instructions described in "Registering an External Procedure" and "Executing an External Procedure"

• External Procedures Overview
  External procedures are functions written in a third-generation language (C, for example) and callable from within PL/SQL or SQL as if they were a PL/SQL routine or function.
• Installing and Configuring Oracle Database and Oracle Net Services
  Describes about the installation and configuration of Oracle Database and Oracle Net.
• Writing an External Procedure
  Using a third-generation programming language, you can write functions to be built into DLLs and started by EXTPROC.
• Building a DLL
  After writing your external procedures in a third-generation programming language, use the appropriate compiler and linker to build a DLL, making sure to export the external procedures as noted previously.
• Registering an External Procedure
  Once you have built a DLL containing your external procedures, you must register your external procedures with Oracle Database.
• Restricting Library-Related Privileges to Trusted Users Only
  The CREATE LIBRARY, CREATE ANY LIBRARY, ALTER ANY LIBRARY, and EXECUTE ANY LIBRARY privileges, and grants of EXECUTE ON library_name convey a great deal of power to users.
• Executing an External Procedure
  To run an external procedure, you must call the PL/SQL program unit (that is, the alias for the external function) that registered the external procedure.