Delete if "export" is successful?!

Question

Hi there!
I've got something special which is driving me mad at the moment :-)
What I want to do is the following.
# "export" records (append) into a file on the filesystem via a select-statement ( select ... WHERE datetime < SYSDATE - 90;) in the format "insert into <table> values (...);".
# If this is done correctly (without any errors, 0 affected rows doesn't count), delete these lines via a delete-statement (delete ... WHERE datetime < SYSDATE - 90;)
# I want to pack these Oracle instructions into wrapper-shell scripts like
#! /bin/sh
ORACLE_HOME=/oracle/ADM/920_64; export ORACLE_HOME
PATH=$PATH:$ORACLE_HOME/bin; export PATH
sqlplus /nolog <<EOF
connect <user>/<password>@<system>
@/oracle/ADM/admin/ADM/scripts/<sqlstatements>.sql
EOF
Any help is appreciated (especially ways how to "export" data to the filesystem)

Answer 1

To export your data to a file you can either use SQL*Plus to "spool" the data out view select statements. You can use the formatting options to produce comma-delimiteres (set colsep ,) and you can mess around with setting to eliminate headings, feedback etc. Have a look at the sql*plus docs for all the options available. You can also use UTL_FILE package to write out to a file. THis would need some form of PL/SQL loop to go through a format your result sets (i.e. in a Cursor FOR LOOP).
The PLSQL loop may be better as you would have better control over what data was succssfully exported, you can delete through a collection of ROWIDs which have been "exported", and you can control your commits etc.
Rgds
Dave