Define BINARY DATA column (DB2 to Oracle migration)

Question

Have a table where a column is defined as 'FOR BIT DATA'. This specifies that the contents of the column are to be treated as bit (binary) data. During data exchange with other systems, code page conversions are not performed. Comparisons are done in binary, irrespective of the database collating sequence.
During conversion to Oracle using Oracle Migration Workbench, this table is converted irrespective of this definition. Please see below for details:
DB2 table definition:
CREATE TABLE ADMIN.XENCY (
          ID INTEGER NOT NULL ,
          XENCYSYMBOL CHAR(2) FOR BIT DATA NOT NULL ,
          IN TS_XENCY ;
Oracle table definition as generated by OMWB:
CREATE TABLE ADMIN.XENCY
( ID NUMBER(10,0) NOT NULL ENABLE,
XENCYSYMBOL CHAR(2) NOT NULL ENABLE,
) PCTFREE 10 PCTUSED 40 INITRANS 1 MAXTRANS 255 NOCOMPRESS LOGGING
STORAGE(INITIAL 65536 NEXT 1048576 MINEXTENTS 1 MAXEXTENTS 2147483645
PCTINCREASE 0 FREELISTS 1 FREELIST GROUPS 1 BUFFER_POOL DEFAULT)
TABLESPACE TS_XENCY;
During data loading from DB2 to Oracle it fails for this table with the following error:
Type: Error
Time: 14-08-2006 18:21:02
Phase: Migrating
Message: Unable to migrate data from source table ADMIN.XENCY to destination table ADMIN.XENCY : ADMIN.XENCY; ORA-12899: value too large for column "ADMIN"."XENCY"."XENCYSYMBOL" (actual: 4, maximum: 2)
For Oracle the length of the data in this column is 4; however for DB2 it is 2 only as shown below:
$ db2 "select max(length(Xencysymbol)) from admin.Xency with ur"
1
2
1 record(s) selected.
$     
The distinct contents of this table is as follows:
$ db2 "select distinct Xencysymbol from admin.Xency with ur"
XENCYSYMBOL
x'0024'
x'2020'
2 record(s) selected.
$
How do I define a column as containing binary data in Oracle?
Thanks in advance.

Answer 1

The MWB DB2 LUW plug-in incorrectly translates CHAR FOR BIT. Doesn't particularly pay attention to any of the CHAR modifiers. It will just see that column as a CHAR. Obviously, this is a defect.
Binary data of limited length is stored in RAW type columns in Oracle DB.
You have two problems (in addition to issuing an ALTER COLUMN to fix the type delcaration or dropping, tweaking the table creation script and reloading. )
1. The data extraction scripts utilized for that table have not properly encoded the data for transport between DB systems. If there are endian differences between he source and target platform there may be additional problems. Nominally, you can export the binary data in hex format.
2. The SQL*Loader file needs to be adjusted. (if you dump in hex format, so the data in the file is characters of a hex value )
XENCYSYMBOL CHAR : hextoraw( : XENCYSYMBOL)
Loader will convert those hex characters back into RAW as it loads.
[ The  built in data pump will not work obviously because the system thinks it is a CHAR. So offline data transfer is your only option.  ]