How to extract a part of text using utl_file

Question

hi,
I have a small requirement which goes as follows. I have a text file which is a resultof the sql query and it contains 16 columns as TAB delimited text . I am using the UTL_FILE package concept to read the data. In general when we use the UTL_FILE.GET_LINE we read the entire line of text. But i need to read the 10th column of the query or the tab delimited text .
Please advice.
My query goes something like this:
declare
f utl_file.file_type;
s long;
c number := 0;
begin
f := utl_file.fopen('ABC_EXTRACTS','sample1.txt','R');
loop
utl_file.get_line(f,s);
insert into s values (s);
c := c + 1;
end loop;
exception
when NO_DATA_FOUND then
utl_file.fclose(f);
dbms_output.put_line('No. of rows inserted : ' || c);
end;

Answer 1

prazy the one which you have specified above seems to work fine .but if a word is seperated by the space it is considering as tab (space delimited is considered as tab limited by your query)delimited .
with T as (
select 'john sam alfred nobel samuel thomas' col1 from dual)
select regexp_substr(col1,'[^      ]+',1,4) from t
here alfred nobel is a single name and is seperated by a space .the above query returns nobel but we need samuel .
What i mean to say is space delimited should not be taken into consideration when tab delimited is considered(since if 4 is replaced by 5 in the above query we may get samuel) .
Please advice