That's pretty much it, at least through Oracle 8.1.7 (what I'm using). This is mostly because Oracle only uses one service name to make the connection, EXTPROC_CONNECTION_DATA, and TNSNAMES can only associate that service name with one IPC key. Therefore you can only talk to the one listener that is listening for that IPC key. You could start a second listener listening on another IPC key, but only the one referenced in TNSNAMES would ever be used.
Which brings to mind a possible work around - if you can get a different database to use a different TNSNAMES.ORA file to resolve service names, you might get this to work - maybe by setting the TNS_ADMIN environment variable to a different value before you bring up the database. I haven't tried it, though, so no promises. If you are using a later version of Oracle, however, read the docs carefully. Seems to me that if they have made it possible to connect to remote external procedure handlers through TCP/IP - 8.1.7 REQUIRES a local handler using IPC, they may have made a way to control the service name it uses so you can choose which external procedure handler to use. The key docs for external procedures are the Application Programmers Guide, the PL/SQL Guide, and the Server Guide, plus a few Technical Notes in MetaLink. -----Original Message----- Sent: Thursday, January 08, 2004 9:39 AM To: Multiple recipients of list ORACLE-L Hmm...so if for some reason I needed two external procedure listeners to run, (because, for example I wanted them to run as 2 different application users rather than oracle or use 2 different sets of .so files), I could not do it? -- Please see the official ORACLE-L FAQ: http://www.orafaq.net -- Author: John Flack INET: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Fat City Network Services -- 858-538-5051 http://www.fatcity.com San Diego, California -- Mailing list and web hosting services --------------------------------------------------------------------- To REMOVE yourself from this mailing list, send an E-Mail message to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (note EXACT spelling of 'ListGuru') and in the message BODY, include a line containing: UNSUB ORACLE-L (or the name of mailing list you want to be removed from). You may also send the HELP command for other information (like subscribing).