External Table Application

Question

Trying to install the External_Table_Simple_0.9 application but I am receiving errors.
I installed the application but it could not see the flat file, so I de-installed and on re-install I got these errors.
report error:
ORA-29913: error in executing ODCIEXTTABLEOPEN callout
ORA-29400: data cartridge error
KUP-04063: unable to open log file EXT_EMPLOYEES_EXTERNAL_5476_2344.log
OS error The data is invalid.
Has anybody experienced this.
Gus

Answer 1

Gus,
Copy and paste will not do the work every time.
I copied and pasted the package definition you posted and it won't compile. One
of the declarations is not properly quoted:
x :=
         q'! comment on table ext_employees is 'Data loaded: !'
      || TO_CHAR (SYSDATE, 'FMDay, Mon ddth, hh:mi am');
   x := x || q'! by !' || NVL (v ('APP_USER'), USER) || q'!' !';
   EXECUTE IMMEDIATE x;
...Other than that, you also had an inproper positioning specification here:
FIRST_NAME position(8:22),
last_name position(23:34),
where you didn't consider whitspace between the two columns.
I assume the file you use is of fixed column length. I used the information
you pasted here and modified it accordingly to get a fixed lenght of the columns:
EMP_ID FIRST_NAME LAST_NAME EMAIL    PHONE_NUMBER HIRE_DATE  JOB_ID  SALARY COMM_PCT MGR_ID DEPT_ID
100    Steven     King      SKING    515.123.4567 06/17/1987 AD_PRES 24000           90
101    Neena      Kochhar   NKOCHHAR 515.123.4568 09/21/1989 AD_VP   17000           100    90
102    Lex        De Haan   LDEHAAN  515.123.4569 01/13/1993 AD_VP   17000           100    90
103    Al         Hunold    AHUNOLD  590.423.4567 01/03/1990 IT_PROG 9000            102    60Saved it as employees.txt into the directory DATA_LOAD.
Running the following script will create an external table:
CREATE TABLE ext_employees_external
  employee_id     VARCHAR(20),
  first_name      VARCHAR(20),
  last_name       VARCHAR(20),
  email           VARCHAR(20),
  phone_number    VARCHAR(20),
  hire_date       VARCHAR(20),
  job_id          VARCHAR(20),
  salary          VARCHAR(20),
  commission_pct  VARCHAR(20),
  manager_id      VARCHAR(20),
  department_id   VARCHAR(20)
ORGANIZATION EXTERNAL
  (  TYPE oracle_loader
     DEFAULT DIRECTORY data_load
     ACCESS PARAMETERS
       ( RECORDS DELIMITED BY NEWLINE
SKIP 2
FIELDS MISSING FIELD VALUES ARE NULL(
employee_id POSITION(001:006),
first_name POSITION(008:0017),
last_name POSITION(019:027),
email POSITION(029:036),
phone_number POSITION(038:049),
hire_date POSITION(051:060) ,
job_id POSITION(062:068),
salary POSITION(070:075),
commission_pct POSITION(077:083),
manager_id POSITION(086:092),
department_id POSITION(093:100)
     LOCATION (data_load:'employees.txt')
REJECT LIMIT 10
NOPARALLEL
NOMONITORING;This table is reading the data properly. You may now include this in your procedure.
You certanly need to have a look at your .txt file and exactly determie the column
widths. I was using varchar2 in the column definiton of the extenal table. Since you are
loading the external table into your "real" table, you may want to perform data
conversion at that point.
The directory I specified in this script is DATA_LOAD. Your directory may be different.
Denes Kubicek