Error when i fetch the external table in oracle 9i ?

Question

External table is created.
But, when i select the external table , it is thrwing the following error.
I have given READ and WRITE permission to the oracle directory.
And, i having the flat file with comma delimited data.
SQL> create table mohan_ext (
2 EMPNO NUMBER(5) ,
3 JOB VARCHAR2(15),
4 SALARY NUMBER(8,2),
5 MGR NUMBER(5) ,
6 HIREDATE DATE,
7 DEPTNO NUMBER(5)
8 )
9 organization external
10 (type oracle_loader
11 default directory ext_dir
12 access parameters (records delimited by newline
13 fields terminated by ','
14 missing field values are null
15 (
16 EMPNO NUMBER(5:5) ,
17 JOB VARCHAR2(15:15),
18 SALARY NUMBER(8,2:8,2),
19 MGR NUMBER(5:5) ,
20 HIREDATE DATE,
21 DEPTNO NUMBER(5:5)
22 )
23 )
24 LOCATION('flat.txt'));
Table created.
SQL> select * from mohan_ext;
select * from mohan_ext
ERROR at line 1:
ORA-29913: error in executing ODCIEXTTABLEOPEN callout
ORA-29400: data cartridge error
KUP-00554: error encountered while parsing access parameters
KUP-01005: syntax error: found "identifier": expecting one of: "comma, char, date, defaultif,
decimal, double, float, integer, (, nullif, oracle_date, oracle_number, position, raw, recnum, ),
unsigned, varrawc, varchar, varraw, varcharc, zoned"
KUP-01008: the bad identifier was: NUMBER
KUP-01007: at line 5 column 11
ORA-06512: at "SYS.ORACLE_LOADER", line 14
ORA-06512: at line 1
SQL>

Answer 1

You may need to scrub some of the data prior to using it as an external table. For instance, ensure that you do not have any extra commas lingering around somewhere within the data as this could cause mapping issues with the data. I've used this process hundreds of times, and more often than not there is an extra comma somewhere that is causing the issue.