Looks like when you log into sqlplus in 10.2.0.3 you get your prompt set up with user@database. You used to have to write a login.sql script to do this. However, this appears to have broken a standard way to log into sqlplus from a unix shell. For years I have used... sqlplus -s /nolog << EOF conn ${LOGINPASSWORD} EOF Try it. You just hang when you log in. Also the following is necessary without -s sqlplus /nolog << EOF conn ${LOGINPASSWORD} conn ${LOGINPASSWORD} EOF First conn it takes your variable as a variable for the prompt, the second time logs you in. Rather annoying. I have been on projects where I Have had tons of code written the first way with -s /nolog that would have to be changed. anyone have a workaround to get -s /nolog to work? -- //www.freelists.org/webpage/oracle-l