Help on SQL Loader When Clause

Question

I have 2 Oracle tables of exact same structure.
ENO NUMBER
PARENT NUMBER
CHILD NUMBER
ENAME VARCHAR2 (50 Byte)
ADDRESS VARCHAR2 (50 Byte)
CITY VARCHAR2 (50 Byte)
SRCFILENAME VARCHAR2 (50 Byte)
SDATE VARCHAR2 (400 Byte)
Current_Load VARCHAR2 (1 Byte)
Have a data file and a loader control file which loads data in these 2 tables.
I need to do a conditional load using a when clause.
Condition : when PARENT=CHILD, load in table 2 else load in table 1
My control file looks like this .
LOAD DATA
INFILE 'TEST_20120815.txt'
APPEND INTO TABLE test1
fields terminated by "|"
trailing nullcols
eno,
parent,
child,
ename,
address,
city ,
sdate "to_date(:sdate,'DD/MM/YYYY')",
SrcFileName,
col7 filler,
"Current_Load" constant 'Y'
INTO TABLE test2 when (parent=child)
fields terminated by "|"
trailing nullcols
eno position(1),
parent,
child,
ename,
address,
city ,
sdate "to_date(:sdate,'DD/MM/YYYY')",
SrcFileName,
col7 filler,
"Current_Load" constant 'Y'
) But this doesn't work. It works fine if I give direct value like PARENT='P'.
Any idea as how to compare the 2 fields while doing conditional load?

Answer 1

You cannot compare 2 fields with the WHEN clause in an SQL*Loader control file.
only literal values as defined by the syntax:
http://docs.oracle.com/cd/B19306_01/server.102/b14215/ldr_control_file.htm#i1005657
As already suggested, you would be better to load your data using an external table where you can apply any conditions you want during your SQL query that is fetching the data.