Column display problem in Sqlplus

Question

Hello,
I am facing a strange problem. I am using Oracle 9i R2 and have two databases on a machine.
I run a select statement:
select 'aamir', substr(test,1,5) from dual;
where test is a function that just returns 'aamir'.
The problem is that when I run this select form database A, it gives output like this:
'AAMIR'
SUBSTR(TEST,1,5)
aamir
aamir
and when I run the same statement from database B withoug quitting Sqlplus (using connect user1/passwd1@B), it shows result as follows:
'AAMI SUBST
aamir aamir
Why does it change the line or why is line width so large ??
I am having problem because there is script (awk script) that manipulate results and because of line feed between two columns the (awk)script doesnt return expected results.
Thank you
Aamir

Answer 1

Your SQL*Plus settings must be different in the two sessions. You should have a glogin.sql that spans all users and a login.sql file that is particular to you. The login.sql file is only run when you first connect, it won't be re-run when you type "connect" in an existing session, so some of its settings may be lost.
If you depend on the formatting of your output, I believe that Kevin's point is that you ought to put explicit column formatting into your SQL script. Something like
column col1 format a10;
column col2 format a10;
column col3 format a15;
SELECT 'shortVal' AS col1,
       '0123456789' AS col2,
       'reallyLongValueMoreThan15Characters' AS col3
  FROM dual;
scott@jcave > SELECT 'shortVal' AS col1,
  2         '0123456789' AS col2,
  3         'reallyLongValueMoreThan15Characters' AS col3
  4    FROM dual;
COL1       COL2       COL3
shortVal   0123456789 reallyLongValue
                      MoreThan15Chara
                      ctersJustin
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