Edwin >> Does anyone know how to call unix scripts from oracle database? See Ask Tom: http://asktom.oracle.com/pls/asktom/f?p=100:11:121647670368872::::P11_QUESTION_ID:952229840241 It's a long running thread - there are different answers for different Oracle versions. In 10g you can use DBMS_SCHEDULER (see eg DBMS_SCHEDULER.CREATE_JOB( ... job_type=>'EXECUTABLE', job_action=>'myscript my argument list', ...) http://download-uk.oracle.com/docs/cd/B19306_01/appdev.102/b14258/d_sched.htm#i1000363 Regards Nigel