Do you mean the string "cancel", or a control-c terminator? If it's the string "cancel", I would do that in perl, since you can open a program as a bi-directional process. If you just want to send control-c, you can have a forked process that watches the sqlplus command and sends a SIGINT when the right moment comes (check your OS, but on my box that's a kill -2). Matt -- Matthew Zito Chief Scientist GridApp Systems P: 646-452-4090 mzito@xxxxxxxxxxx http://www.gridapp.com -----Original Message----- From: oracle-l-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx on behalf of Bala Sent: Thu 2/12/2009 11:17 PM To: oracle-l Subject: Unix Shell Script Help How do i supply "Cancel" in a Unix Shell script after the SQLPLUS command RECOVER DATABASE USING BACKUP CONTROLFILE UNTIL CANCEL; any tips/ suggestions highly appreciated. Thanks in Advance ( Hot backup, HP unix, Oracle 10.2.0.4) -- Bala Rao