Chapter 5. Using Advanced Interface Methods
Oracle enables the application developers to create PL/SQL routines that can invoke programs written in non-Oracle programming languages. An external program can be a C, C++ based, or Java-based program. External procedures were introduced in Oracle 8i to add extensibility to the Oracle Database engine by allowing the non-Oracle programs to execute in the database kernel. This chapter covers the external procedures and their implementation in the following topics:
- Understanding external routines
- Architecture and benefits
- Executing external C programs from PL/SQL
- Executing external Java programs from PL/SQL