Thanks,
For the replies. -k you are right in the sense that it is a recordset. If I explain what I'm after then you guys could probably point me in the right direction.
I've got a report which contains around 18 months worth of data which produces 3 million plus records. The sql starts returning data within a few minutes, but because of the volumn it takes a few hours to read all the records into crystal, then crystal creates a couple of crosstabs from the data, with various formula this and the formating of the page adds more time, so it takes a good few hours before it actual shows you the report.
I've been playing with the idea of basing the report on a text file instead which will run off once a week, so that when they access the report, they will not atleast have to wait for the database to execute the query and return records.
What I wanted to do is schedule the query and then schedule the report to run straight after and then they can simply view it.
I've had a look at dbms_jobs, but I'm not sure of how to use it and how I can just set it to run in a minute's time for example so that I can check that it's working. Do you need to provide logon info at the time the job runs?
I could also set up a cron job, but I would like to keep it in the database and besides then you've got the problem of converting the file from unix2dos, which I know there is a utility for but the less conversion I have to do the better.
Thanks Guys