Getting ORA-22805 when trying to load XML file using SQLLDR

Question

I'm trying to learn the basics of XML since we'll be getting XML files in the near future. I'm using one of the sample schemas that comes with XMLSPY. I loaded this schema into an 11g Oracle DB using XMLSPY:
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<!-- edited with XML Spy v4.0 NT beta 1 build Jun 13 2001 (http://www.xmlspy.com) by Alexander Falk (Altova, Inc.) -->
<schema xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema" xmlns:ipo="http://www.altova.com/IPO" targetNamespace="http://www.altova.com/IPO" elementFormDefault="unqualified" attributeFormDefault="unqualified">
     <annotation>
          <documentation>
International Purchase order schema for Example.com
Copyright 2000 Example.com. All rights reserved.
</documentation>
     </annotation>
     <!-- include address constructs -->
     <include schemaLocation="address.xsd"/>
     <element name="purchaseOrder" type="ipo:PurchaseOrderType"/>
     <element name="comment" type="string"/>
     <complexType name="PurchaseOrderType">
          <sequence>
               <element name="shipTo" type="ipo:Address"/>
               <element name="billTo" type="ipo:Address"/>
               <element ref="ipo:comment" minOccurs="0"/>
               <element name="Items" type="ipo:Items"/>
          </sequence>
          <attribute name="orderDate" type="date"/>
     </complexType>
     <complexType name="Items">
          <sequence>
               <element name="item" minOccurs="0" maxOccurs="unbounded">
                    <complexType>
                         <sequence>
                              <element name="productName" type="string"/>
                              <element name="quantity">
                                   <simpleType>
                                        <restriction base="positiveInteger">
                                             <maxExclusive value="100"/>
                                        </restriction>
                                   </simpleType>
                              </element>
                              <element name="price" type="decimal"/>
                              <element ref="ipo:comment" minOccurs="0"/>
                              <element name="shipDate" type="date" minOccurs="0"/>
                         </sequence>
                         <attribute name="partNum" type="ipo:Sku"/>
                    </complexType>
               </element>
          </sequence>
     </complexType>
     <simpleType name="Sku">
          <restriction base="string">
               <pattern value="\d{3}-[A-Z]{2}"/>
          </restriction>
     </simpleType>
</schema>
Then I created an XMLType table:
CREATE TABLE purchaseOrder OF XMLType
XMLSCHEMA "ipo.xsd" ELEMENT "purchaseOrder"
I'm trying to load the sample XML file ipo.xml into purchaseOrder using SQLLDR. This is ipo.xml:
<?xml version="1.0"?>
<!-- edited with XMLSPY v2004 rel. 4 U (http://www.xmlspy.com) by Mr. Nobody (Altova GmbH) -->
<ipo:purchaseOrder xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance" xmlns:ipo="http://www.altova.com/IPO" orderDate="1999-12-01" xsi:schemaLocation="http://www.altova.com/IPO
ipo.xsd">
     <shipTo export-code="1" xsi:type="ipo:EU-Address">
          <ipo:name>Helen Zoe</ipo:name>
          <ipo:street>47 Eden Street</ipo:street>
          <ipo:city>Cambridge</ipo:city>
          <ipo:postcode>126</ipo:postcode>
     </shipTo>
     <billTo xsi:type="ipo:US-Address">
          <ipo:name>Robert Smith</ipo:name>
          <ipo:street>8 Oak Avenue</ipo:street>
          <ipo:city>Old Town</ipo:city>
          <ipo:state>AK</ipo:state>
          <ipo:zip>95819</ipo:zip>
     </billTo>
     <Items>
          <item partNum="833-AA">
               <productName>Lapis necklace</productName>
               <quantity>2</quantity>
               <price>99.95</price>
               <ipo:comment>Need this for the holidays!</ipo:comment>
               <shipDate>1999-12-05</shipDate>
          </item>
          <item partNum="748-OT">
               <productName>Diamond heart</productName>
               <quantity>1</quantity>
               <price>248.90</price>
               <ipo:comment>Valentine's day packaging.</ipo:comment>
               <shipDate>2000-02-14</shipDate>
          </item>
          <item partNum="783-KL">
               <productName>Uncut diamond</productName>
               <quantity>7</quantity>
               <price>79.90</price>
               <shipDate>2000-01-07</shipDate>
          </item>
          <item partNum="238-KK">
               <productName>Amber ring</productName>
               <quantity>3</quantity>
               <price>89.90</price>
               <ipo:comment>With no inclusions, please.</ipo:comment>
               <shipDate>2000-01-07</shipDate>
          </item>
          <item partNum="229-OB">
               <productName>Pearl necklace</productName>
               <quantity>1</quantity>
               <price>4879.00</price>
               <shipDate>1999-12-05</shipDate>
          </item>
          <item partNum="128-UL">
               <productName>Jade earring</productName>
               <quantity>5</quantity>
               <price>179.90</price>
               <shipDate>2000-02-14</shipDate>
          </item>
     </Items>
</ipo:purchaseOrder>
This is what's in the control file:
LOAD DATA
INFILE *
INTO TABLE purchaseOrder TRUNCATE
xmltype(xmldata)
FIELDS
xmldata LOBFILE (CONSTANT ipo.xml)
BEGINDATA
0
The load fails with:
Record 1: Rejected - Error on table PURCHASEORDER.
ORA-22805: cannot insert NULL object into object tables or nested tables
Another question I have is, how do we know how many records (0's) to specify in the control file? In this case there's only one but when real files are used we won't know how many are in the file.
Thanks for your help!

Answer 1

The concept was "Don't use SQL*Loader to parse XML".
You can use SQL*Loader to load an entire XML document into the DB. That is fine. You can do the same via BFILENAME to read in files from disk as well.
If you want to parse XML, do that from within Oracle via PL/SQL and/or SQL. The solution depends upon your version of Oracle and what is good enough for you in terms of performance.
So the basics are
a) How am I getting the information?
b) How am I getting in into Oracle?
c) How do I want to parse it?
As I see the schema, it only allows for one ipo:purchaseOrder node in the document, since that is the root node. If you have multiple in the incoming file, you no longer have valid XML, both per the schema and because you have no single root node. You have an XML fragment, which must be treated different.
Just trying to understand the question since I now realize it does not agree with what the schema in your initial example shows.