Check file availability

Question

Hi All
I have a files in my Directory with the below name.
TARGET_FILE_012010.TXT
Im using UTL_FILE.FGETATTR to check file exists or not.
Is it possible to check for file availabilty with partial file names as i checked below.
UTL_FILE.FGETATTR('BI_DIR',
'TARGET'||'.*',
b_availability,
n_file_length,
n_block_size);
Please advice
Thanks
Jo

Answer 1

I was given a work by using UTL files,I was strugling to get a solution.Why use UTL_FILE here? Obviously that's not the right tool (imo) given your requirements.
The fact that you're struggling with it currently proves that as well.
You can easily copy/paste the code from the AskTom links and check out dirlist.
-It will give you the creation/lastmodified date of a file
-You can check if a file exists in a certain directory
-You can list a directory with it
One java source (and a PL/SQL wrapper) can do all that for you easily.
I would not use UTL_FILE for all this.
Alternatively you could check out UTL_FTP:
http://www.oracle-base.com/articles/misc/FTPFromPLSQL.php
If you take a look at the examples you'll see it's also capable of doing a directory listing etc.
But you'll need to have an FTP directory then, and that's not always the case.