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.

These calls can appear in any of the following:

• Anonymous blocks

• Standalone and packaged subprograms

• Methods of an object type

• Database triggers

• SQL statements (calls to packaged functions only)

In “Registering an External Procedure”, PL/SQL function PLS_MAX registered external procedure find_max. Follow these steps to run find_max:

1. Call PL/SQL function PLS_MAX from a PL/SQL routine named UseIt:

   SET SERVER OUTPUT ON
   CREATE OR REPLACE PROCEDURE UseIt AS
            	a integer;
            	b integer;
            	c integer;
   BEGIN
            	a := 1;
            	b := 2;
            	c := PLS_MAX(a,b);
            	dbms_output.put_line('The maximum of '||a||' and '||b||' is  '||c);
   END;
   

2. Run the routine:

   SQL> EXECUTE UseIt;