In a bunch of Broadpin customer projects we're leveraging Oracle SQLcl in combination with JavaScript to implement DevOps pipelines.
With the recent SQLcl 25.3 release this caused us a bunch of issues – here are our workarounds should you run into similar trouble.
Java / JavaScript support with SQLcl
As you can see in the release notes of SQLcl 25.3 (https://www.oracle.com/tools/sqlcl/sqlcl-relnotes-25.3.0.html) starting with the latest release, only the following java versions are supported:
Java Releases support with SQLcl 25.3
When comparing this with 25.2 and 25.1 you'll realize, that starting even with 25.2 the support for Java 11 (which includes a Java-Script engine also in the Oracle Java 11) went away.
Strangely under Linux everything is still working with oracle/openjdk-11, but on Windows you'll get:
C:\Entwicklung\Projekte\ebs>sqlcl\bin\sql.exe Oracle SQLcl Console: This application requires a Java Runtime Environment 17.0.5 C:\Entwicklung\Projekte\ebs>
(and Oracle is nice enough to open the browser to point you to the JDK download).
Since also on Linux openjdk-11 is no longer supported for sqlcl-25.2+ I looked into a migration to GraalVM 17 with the JavaScript Plugin.
Installation of GraalVM 17
The installation of GraalVM17 including the JavaScript plugin is simple enough: Navigate to https://www.oracle.com/downloads/graalvm-downloads.html, select the "GraalVM 17" tab and download "Oracle GraalVM Core". I just extracted the files to c:\Entwicklung\jdks\graalvm-jdk-17.0.17 and then set my PATH appropriately:
C:\Entwicklung\Projekte\ebs>set PATH=c:\Entwicklung\jdks\graalvm-jdk-17.0.17\bin;%PATH%; C:\Entwicklung\Projekte\ebs>java -version java version "17.0.17" 2025-10-21 LTS Java(TM) SE Runtime Environment Oracle GraalVM 17.0.17+8.1 (build 17.0.17+8-LTS-jvmci-23.0-b76) Java HotSpot(TM) 64-Bit Server VM Oracle GraalVM 17.0.17+8.1 (build 17.0.17+8-LTS-jvmci-23.0-b76, mixed mode, sharing)
Next us is the JavaScript plugin. The installation is described here: https://docs.oracle.com/en/graalvm/jdk/17/docs/reference-manual/graalvm-updater/#install-components
The easiest way to install the plugin is:
gu install js
You'll have to accept the OTN License (that you get e-mailed) and then all the required plugins are installed:
GraalVM including Java-Script
After that you can do a trivial test as follows:
C:\Entwicklung\Projekte\ebs>sqlcl\bin\sql.exe /nolog
SQLcl: Release 25.3 Production auf Di. Nov. 11 20:52:17 2025
Copyright (c) 1982, 2025, Oracle. All rights reserved. Alle Rechte vorbehalten.
SQL> script
2 ctx.write('test\n');
3* /
test
SQL>
Issue number one: directly running a script
Of course typically you'll have your script in a myscript.js file that you want to run. This worked without issues with openjdk-11 (still does on Linux), but on Windows I'm seeing:
C:\Entwicklung\Projekte\ebs>sqlcl\bin\sql.exe /nolog
SQLcl: Release 25.3 Production auf Di. Nov. 11 20:53:36 2025
Copyright (c) 1982, 2025, Oracle. All rights reserved. Alle Rechte vorbehalten.
SQL> !type test.js
ctx.write('Start extraction ...\n');
SQL> script test.js
TypeError: invokeMember (write) on oracle.dbtools.raptor.newscriptrunner.ScriptRunnerContext failed due to: Unknown identifier: write at line number 1 at column number 1
SQL>
Crazy thing. Running an empty script block before solves (or better: workarounds) this behavior that differs from the openjdk behavior with previous SQLcl versions:
C:\Entwicklung\Projekte\ebs>sqlcl\bin\sql.exe /nolog SQLcl: Release 25.3 Production auf Di. Nov. 11 20:54:47 2025 Copyright (c) 1982, 2025, Oracle. All rights reserved. Alle Rechte vorbehalten. SQL> script 2 ; 3* / SQL> script test.js Start extraction ... SQL>
While I don't understand this, maybe I'll get an answer here: https://forums.oracle.com/ords/apexds/post/sqlcl-25-3-migrating-to-graalvm-with-js-plugin-0345
Lucky for me I run all my scripts through a small run.sql-helper that I just extended by 3 dummy-lines to make this workaround global across my project:
whenever oserror exit failure whenever sqlerror exit failure script ; / script &1 &2; exit;
Issue number two: sql vs sql.exe and mingw
Usually I run my sqlcl scripts through a wrapper-bash-script that (on Windows) is executed through git-bash. Unfortunately, with SQLcl 25.3 there is another issue here:
jmichler@PROM-231 MINGW64 /c/Entwicklung/Projekte/ebs (feature/1123) $ sqlcl/bin/sql -v Exception in thread "main" java.lang.NoClassDefFoundError: oracle/dbtools/win32/WindowsSupport at oracle.dbtools.raptor.utils.WindowsUtility.readStringSubKeys(WindowsUtility.java:81) at oracle.dbtools.raptor.scriptrunner.cmdline.JDBCHelper.getOH(JDBCHelper.java:83) at oracle.dbtools.raptor.scriptrunner.cmdline.JDBCHelper.isOHReal(JDBCHelper.java:58) at oracle.dbtools.raptor.scriptrunner.cmdline.JDBCHelper.doesOHJDBCExist(JDBCHelper.java:120) at oracle.dbtools.raptor.scriptrunner.cmdline.SQLCliOptions.populateContextWithOptions(SQLCliOptions.java:1040) at oracle.dbtools.raptor.scriptrunner.cmdline.SqlCli.processArgsAndPopulateInContext(SqlCli.java:329) at oracle.dbtools.raptor.scriptrunner.cmdline.SqlCli.processArgsAndPopulateInContext(SqlCli.java:321) at oracle.dbtools.raptor.scriptrunner.cmdline.SqlCli.main(SqlCli.java:276) Caused by: java.lang.ClassNotFoundException: oracle.dbtools.win32.WindowsSupport at java.base/jdk.internal.loader.BuiltinClassLoader.loadClass(BuiltinClassLoader.java:641) at java.base/jdk.internal.loader.ClassLoaders$AppClassLoader.loadClass(ClassLoaders.java:188) at java.base/java.lang.ClassLoader.loadClass(ClassLoader.java:525) ... 8 more
But the good thing is – as pointed out in xxx – this can be solved by just running sql.exe instead:
jmichler@PROM-231 MINGW64 /c/Entwicklung/Projekte/ebs (feature/1123) $ sqlcl/bin/sql.exe -v SQLcl: Release 25.3.0.0 Production Build: 25.3.0.274.1210 jmichler@PROM-231 MINGW64 /c/Entwicklung/Projekte/ebs (feature/1123)
And with this in place you'll run into a third (easy to solve) issue.
Issue number 3: Parameter passing with mingw
jmichler@PROM-231 MINGW64 /c/Entwicklung/Projekte/ebs (feature/1123) $ sqlcl/bin/sql.exe /nolog Invalid Option: C:/Program Files/Git/nolog Oracle SQL Developer Command-Line (SQLcl) help
Luckily this can be solved by either passing double / or by setting the following environment variable:
jmichler@PROM-231 MINGW64 /c/Entwicklung/Projekte/ebs (feature/1123) $ export MSYS2_ARG_CONV_EXCL="*" jmichler@PROM-231 MINGW64 /c/Entwicklung/Projekte/ebs (feature/1123) $ sqlcl/bin/sql.exe /nolog SQLcl: Release 25.3 Production auf Di. Nov. 11 21:00:56 2025 Copyright (c) 1982, 2025, Oracle. All rights reserved. Alle Rechte vorbehalten. SQL>
Thanks to https://forums.oracle.com/ords/apexds/post/sqlcl-25-3-noclassdeffounderror-when-running-from-git-bash-2576 for pointing out those solutions.
Complex Scripts and Summary
The good thing is: After having overcome those little hurdles the actual scripts and processes we had implemented work without any further modifications. 🙂
Hopefully Oracle will continue to support the JavaScript engine within sqlcl since it can be really helpful; even though it gets more and more complex to leverage the engine due to special JDK/JRE requirements.