Changing negative value

Question

can you pls help me on this
we have a strange req. like below
load data
into table TEST_123
append
FIELDS TERMINATED BY ',' OPTIONALLY ENCLOSED BY '"' TRAILING NULLCOLS
  PRODUCT                 "LTRIM(:PRODUCT,'0')"
  , ORDER_DATE NULLIF (ORDER_DATE='00000000')  "TO_DATE(:ORDER_DATE,'YYYYMMDD')"
  , QTY
  , TIMESTAMP     "TO_DATE(:TIMESTAMP,'YYYYMMDD')"
)following are the data file
00422972,20101209,34-,20101209
00422973,00000000,48,20101209
00426229,20101214,56-,20101207when we have 34- or 56- as QTY from the data file, it should be deleted from loading into test_123 table
Is there anyway we can do this?
as the qty filed is defined as number, it wont accept 34-,
Is there any way we can convert -34 from 34-..?
the table fields are defined as
create table test_123
product varchar2(50),
order_date date,
qty number,
timestamp date
)Many thanks

Answer 1

Hello user12093849.
Your post is a bit contradictory. First you mention "deleting from loading" and then you mention converting. As the records will already reject and therefore not be loaded, I'll address the numeric conversion.
If you want to load a number with a format that can not be implicitly converted, you'll need to specify the format. To specify a trailing minus sign '-', you can use either a format of '99S' or '99MI'. However, the '99S' requires your positive numeric value to be presented with a plus sign '+' and the '99MI' requires a plus sign or single space ' '. Since your sample data doesn't suggest a trailing space or trailing plus sign, you'll need to do a bit more than specifying the correct format and supply your own function. Here is a rough sampleCREATE OR REPLACE FUNCTION  to_number_minus
  ( p_string  VARCHAR2 )
  RETURN  NUMBER
IS
  r_number    NUMBER  := 0;
  r_position  NUMBER  := 0;
BEGIN
  r_position := INSTR(p_string, '-');
  IF  r_position = 0
  THEN
    r_number := p_string;
  ELSE
    r_number := TO_NUMBER(p_string, '99999999MI');
  END IF;
  RETURN  r_number;
END;
FUNCTION TO_NUMBER_MINUS compiled
SELECT  'x'||TO_NUMBER_MINUS('34')||'x' FROM dual;
NUM_VAL                                   
x34x                                      
SELECT  'x'||TO_NUMBER_MINUS('34-')||'x' FROM dual;
NUM_VAL                                   
x-34xHope this helps,
Luke
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