29.1 Introduction to External Procedure and Cartridge Services Functions

This section introduces the OCI external procedure functions.

These functions enable users of external procedures to raise errors, allocate some memory, and get OCI context information.

Then the cartridge services functions are described.

See Also:

• Oracle Database Development Guide for more information about using these functions in external procedures

• Oracle Database Data Cartridge Developer's Guide for more information about using these functions

29.1.1 Conventions for OCI Functions

Describes conventions used in describing each function.

See the Conventions for OCI Functions for the conventions used in describing each function. The entries for each function may also contain the following information:

• Return Codes

• With_Context Type

Return Codes

Success and error return codes are defined for certain external procedure interface functions. If a particular interface function returns OCIEXTPROC_SUCCESS or OCIEXTPROC_ERROR, then applications must use these macros to check for return values.

• OCIEXTPROC_SUCCESS - External Procedure Success Return Code

• OCIEXTPROC_ERROR - External Procedure Failure Return Code

With_Context Type

The C callable interface to PL/SQL external procedures requires the with_context parameter to be passed. The type of this structure is OCIExtProcContext, which is opaque to the user.

The user can declare the with_context parameter in the application as follows:

OCIExtProcContext *with_context;