Upload multiple excel files into tables using APEX

Question

Hi folks,
I'm wondering if anyone has ever uploaded multiple .csv files simultaniously and store the data into the database using APEX XE before.
I can browse for a single file, and execute that okay and a good example of doing that can be found at http://advait.wordpress.com/2008/05/21/uploading-excel-sheet-using-oracle-application-express-apex/
This works fine when the user browses to a specific file on their network and then uploads the data from that one file.
However I need the ability to 'grab' every file in a specific directory one after the other to process rather than having to specify which one to load everytime, and wondered if anyone has come across this before.
Many thanks
Graham.

Answer 1

Just for completeness ...
Got this to work, but it's a pl/sql issue as opposed to an APEX issue.
Anyway, if anyone needs to have the ability to read multiple files then a quick easy way to do it (as lomg as they know the file names that will be read), is to create a directory on the database which points to the actual harddrive on your PC, then create a table (called an external table) and read from that external table as if it was an actual database table ...
1 - Log on as sys and grant CREATE ANY DIRECTORY to whatever user you are logging in as (assuming you are not using sys to create apps)
2 - Create a directory e.g....CREATE OR REPLACE DIRECTORY GB_TEST AS 'c:\gbtest';
3 - Create an external table as ...
CREATE TABLE gb_test
(file_name varchar2(10),
rec_date date
rec_name VARCHAR2(20),
rec_age number,
ORGANIZATION EXTERNAL
TYPE ORACLE_LOADER
DEFAULT DIRECTORY GB_TEST
ACCESS PARAMETERS
RECORDS DELIMITED BY NEWLINE
FIELDS TERMINATED BY ','
LOCATION ('data1.csv','data2.csv','data3.csv','data4.csv')
PARALLEL 5
REJECT LIMIT 20000;
That's it then ...
select * from gb_test
where file_name = 'xxx'
will return all the data where the file_name = 'xxx'
very easy to use.