Iterate through string column of data that is a varchar2 (2000)

Question

Hi,
My question is how to iterate through the data by selecting the first 120 bytes of the column writing that to a UTL_FILE, then selecting the next 120 bytes to write that to the UTL_FILE as well until there is no more data. I am having a problem getting the second 120 and so on. The column of data is just text.
Thanks any help is greatly appreciated.

Answer 1

I'm sure there is a shorter or more elegant solution, but this is from a quick function I wrote a while back that might give you an example-
-- Declare variables
        v_msg VARCHAR2(2000) := 'whatever your message is';
        v_pos NUMBER := 1;
        v_len NUMBER := 0;
        v_max_len NUMBER := 120;  
        v_yourstring VARCHAR2(150);
-- Iterate in the body of your procedure
           v_len := length(v_msg);
            WHILE v_len > 0
            LOOP
                v_yourstring :=  (substr(v_msg, v_pos, v_max_len));
                -- do whatever you need to do with first 120 characters
                v_pos := v_pos + v_max_len; 
                v_len := v_len - v_max_len;                                             
            END LOOP;