Facing Many Problems About Creating Directory and an External Table

Question

Question:
The weird thing is if you look at question 10-b in page 3-41, it says:
(page 3-41 "Oracle Database 10g SQL Fund. II Vol.1")
Merge the data in the EMP_DATA table created in the last lab into the data in the emp_hist table. Assume
that the data in external EMP_DATA table matches the EMP_HIST table, update the email column
of the EMP_HIST table to match the EMP_DATA table row. If a row in the EMP_DATA table does not
match, insert into the EMP_HIST tables. Rows are considered matching when the employee's first and
last name are identical.
To me, this question is constructed wrongly. First of all in the last lab we have not been asked to create EMP_DATA. Secondly, EMP_DATA is empty.
Thirdly, this question asks us to merge into EMP_HIST table while EMP_DATA is empty.
EMP_HIST table currently has copied data from employees table. EMP_HIST structure:
FIRST_NAME VARCHAR2(20)
LAST_NAME NOT NULL VARCHAR2(25)
EMAIL NOT NULL VARCHAR2(45)
Anway, i did the merge as following:
merge into emp_hist e
using emp_data d
on (e.first_name = d.first_name)
when matched then
update set
e.last_name = d.last_name,
e.email = d.email
when not matched then
insert values (d.first_name, d.last_name, d.email);
I get this error:
Error report:
SQL Error: ORA-29913: error in executing ODCIEXTTABLEOPEN callout
ORA-29400: data cartridge error
KUP-04040: file emp.dat in EMP_DIR not found
ORA-06512: at "SYS.ORACLE_LOADER", line 19
29913. 00000 - "error in executing %s callout"
*Cause:    The execution of the specified callout caused an error.
*Action:   Examine the error messages take appropriate action.
On the other hand, i said let me try this:
merge into emp_data d
using emp_hist e
on (d.first_name = e.first_name)
when matched then
update set
d.last_name = e.last_name,
d.email = e.email
when not matched then
insert values (e.first_name, e.last_name, e.email);
I get this error because external table is final once its created as far as i know:
Error report:
SQL Error: ORA-30657: operation not supported on external organized table
30657.0000 - "operation not supported on external organized table"
*Cause:    User attempted on operation on an external table which is
not supported.
*Action:   Don't do that!
I do not know what to do. I did my best, please help.
Edited by: user11164565 on Jul 27, 2009 2:43 AM

Answer 1

user11164565 wrote:
NOTE: I did my best, i did all what i can do, but the problem persists. Please help
I will mention all the steps i did clearly....
I gave scott the following grants:
grant create any directory to scott;
grant read on directory emp_dir to scott;
1. Created a directory and its been created successfully:
create or replace directory emp_dir
as 'F:\emp_dir';
Then i did the following just to make sure my directory is recognized:
SELECT *
FROM dba_directories;
I found the drive amongst the results...
OWNER DIRECTORY_NAME
DIRECTORY_PATH
SYS EMP_DIR
F:\emp_dir
SYS SUBDIR
D:\oracle\product\10.2.0\db_1\demo\schema\order_entry\/2002/Sep
SYS XMLDIR
D:\oracle\product\10.2.0\db_1\demo\schema\order_entry\
2. I created an external table emp_data (the script is given by the text book): done successfully
drop table emp_data;
CREATE TABLE emp_data
(first_name VARCHAR2(20)
,last_name VARCHAR2(20)
, email VARCHAR2(30)
ORGANIZATION EXTERNAL
TYPE oracle_loader
DEFAULT DIRECTORY emp_dir
ACCESS PARAMETERS
RECORDS DELIMITED BY NEWLINE CHARACTERSET US7ASCII
NOBADFILE
NOLOGFILE
FIELDS
( first_name POSITION ( 1:20) CHAR
, last_name POSITION (22:41) CHAR
, email POSITION (43:72) CHAR )
LOCATION ('emp.dat') ) ;
3. I went to F:\ drive to see if emp_dir folder exist or not! I did not see it. I checked hidden files, nothing there. Anyway, i ignored it and did step 4.
<snip>
"Anyway, I ignored it . . . "
and hence the rest of your problems. I did not see in the steps you recounted that you acually created a directory ("folder") named "\emp_dir" on your f: drive. Nothing you create within the database will actually create that directory on the OS. Createing a directory in Oracle, createing an external table in Oracle, will only create pointers to objects that Oracle will simply assume actually exists.