The line-mode version of Server Manager is provided on all Oracle platforms. It may be used on platforms that do not support a GUI environment, or when a command-line interface is desired or required. In this mode, commands are entered and executed one at a time. Line mode is especially useful for remote (dial-in) access to the database, as well as for automated operations, such as shell scripts run from cron on Unix systems.

Server Manager in line mode has limited functionality when compared to the GUI version. A limited number of commands may be executed, and SQL or PL/SQL statements may be entered and run. There is no monitoring capability in line mode.

Statements entered in line mode may extend to multiple lines, and each line may be terminated by a backslash ( ) character. The semicolon ( ;) is used as the execute command.

SQL scripts may be executed in line mode by preceding the name of the script to be run with the @ symbol. For example, to run a script called demo.sql, you’d enter the following line in Server Manager line mode:

@demo