Forms6i interface with Excel file

Question

I want to interface forms6i with excel file.
Through Forms 6i read data from an excel file and load to oracle tables.

Answer 1

Hi
I'd agree that probably the best approach is to save the Excel file into a delimited file (maybe a comma-separated file) and read it in from there.
Reading a file using TEXT_IO is fine as long as the table isn't very large. Anything beyond a few hundred records, I'd strongly suggest using SQLLoader, as it is massively quicker and you don't have to go to the trouble of writing a routine to parse the line you've read in to split it up into its constituent fields.
If you do go down the route of reading lines in using TEXT_IO, you might find a routine like this useful:
PROCEDURE Get_Next_Field (record_in        IN     VARCHAR2,
                          current_position IN OUT NUMBER,
                          next_field       OUT    VARCHAR2,
                          separator        IN     VARCHAR2) IS
current_letter VARCHAR2(1);
BEGIN
    LOOP
        current_letter := SUBSTR(record_in, current_position, 1);
        current_position := current_position + 1;        
        IF  current_letter <> separator THEN
               next_field := next_field || current_letter;
        ELSE
               EXIT;
        END IF;
    END LOOP;
    --Trim off any enclosing characters
    next_field := LTRIM(next_field, '"');
    next_field := RTRIM(next_field, '"');
END;You can then call this procedure with a series of calls like this to get your values out of the line of text:
Get_Next_Field(line_in, current_position, field1, :separator);
Get_Next_Field(line_in, current_position, field2, :separator);(...where line_in is the line you've just read from your file, current_position is a number to show where you've got to in the line, field1 is the variable to hold the value you split out of the line and :separator is just that, maybe a comma character.)
Hope this helps
regards
Andrew
UK