On Jan 30, 2009, at 8:52, Ralph Angenendt wrote: > By putting `` or $( ) around the call. You can also eliminate the grep altogether: NUMBEROFPRO=/oracle/10.2.0/db_1/bin/sqlplus / as sysdba <<EOF1 | awk '/processes/ {print $2}' SELECT resource_name,current_utilization,limit_value FROM V\ $RESOURCE_LIMIT WHERE RESOURCE_NAME IN ('processes','sessions'); quit EOF1 Cheers, Alfred