Question

In order to load data (from a CSV file) into an Oracle database, I use SQL*Loader.

In the table that receives these data, there is a varchar2(500) column, called COMMENTS.
For some reasons, I want to ignore this information from the CSV file.
Thus, I wrote this control file:

Options (BindSize=10000000,Readsize=10000000,Rows=5000,Errors=100)
  Load Data
  Infile 'XXX.txt'
  Append into table T_XXX
  Fields Terminated By ';'
  TRAILING NULLCOLS
(
    ...
    COMMENTS FILLER,
    ...
)

This code seems to work correctly, as the COMMENTS field in database is always set to null.

However, if in my CSV file I have a record where the corresponding COMMENTS field exceeds the 500 characters limit, I get an error from SQL*Loader:

Record 2: Rejected - Error on table T_XXX, column COMMENTS.
Field in data file exceeds maximum length

Is there a way to really exclude the processing of my COMMENTS fields?

Answer 1

I can’t reproduce your problem. I’m using Oracle 10.2.0.3.0 with SQL*Loader 10.2.0.1.

Here is my test case:

SQL> CREATE TABLE test_sqlldr (
  2     ID NUMBER,
  3     comments VARCHAR2(20),
  4     id2 NUMBER
  5  );

Table created

Control file:

LOAD DATA
INFILE test.data
INTO TABLE test_sqlldr
APPEND
FIELDS TERMINATED BY ';'
TRAILING NULLCOLS
( id,
  comments filler,
  id2
)

data file:

1;aaa;2
3;abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyzabcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyzabcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz;4
5;bbb;6

I’m using the command sqlldr userid=xxx/yyy@zzz control=test.ctl and I’m getting all the rows without errors:

SQL> select * from test_sqlldr;

        ID COMMENTS                    ID2
---------- -------------------- ----------
         1                               2
         3                               4
         5                               6

You may try another approach, I’m getting the same desired result with the following control file:

LOAD DATA
INFILE test.data
INTO TABLE test_sqlldr
APPEND
FIELDS TERMINATED BY ';'
TRAILING NULLCOLS
( id,
  comments "substr(:comments,1,0)",
  id2
)

Update following Romaintaz’s comment: I looked into it again and managed to get the same error as you when the size of the column exceeded 255 characters. This is because the default datatype of SQL*Loader is char(255). If you have a column with more data you will have to specify the length. The following control file solved the problem for a column with 300 characters:

LOAD DATA
INFILE test.data
INTO TABLE test_sqlldr
APPEND
FIELDS TERMINATED BY ';'
TRAILING NULLCOLS
( id,
  comments filler char(4000),
  id2
)

Hope this Helps,

—
Vincent