(Sorry for asking so many questions!)
What techniques can one use to monitor the progress of a stored procedure?
Specifically, how can I get the procedure to print a progress indicator message to the screen every once in a while?
I have a stored procedure that has been running for a very long time. Before doing the current "real" run, I tested the procedure on a toy case and confirmed that it produced the right result. So I know that when it finishes it will be OK, but I can't tell whether it will finish in an hour or in a century... I have no idea of how far along it is. (In case it matters, the procedure is written in PL/perl. I tried to use Perl's print statement, unbuffered, to print out a message periodically from within the procedure, but I see no output.)
Thanks in advance,
Kynn