Maybe others already said, there are other ways of doing that: cat <your_sql_script.sql> | sqlplus user/pwd@db or, for simple sql instructions: echo -e "column DUMMY format a5;\n select DUMMY from DUAL;" | sqlplus user/pwd@db Maybe, the -e option for echo is available only on linux. I'm not 100% sure, the sql script must contain the exit instruction in order to to return the control to the shell. Alessandro >You can either execute script from sql+ cmd line with @ or use ksh here-doc >syntax. You're doing both at the same time. The later will over-ride and you >will get nothing. > >1) sqlplus user/pwd@db @my-script >Or >2) Sqlplus .../...@db <<! >@my-script >exit >! -- //www.freelists.org/webpage/oracle-l