Loading with sqlloader utility

Question

i'm running sql loader utility to append rows into an oracle table; my control card has the following fields:
jobid position(01:05) char,
jobnm position(06:25) char,
create_date position(26:35) date "yyyy-mm-dd"
the problem is that create_date may or may not be in the input file; if it's in the input file, i want to use it; if it's not in the input file, then i want to default to the current date (SYSDATE); in the table, create_date is defined as not null because i have to have something for it;
i thought i could use the "nullif" or "defaultif" parameters, but it doesn't look like it; saw an example of using the "decode" function in the control card to help in deciding what date to load for create_date, but haven't quite figured out the correct syntax for the load card.
Can anyone help?

Answer 1

alternatively is to create a trigger for your table.
create or replace trigger <trigger name>
  before insert on <table name>
  for each row
begin
  if :new.create_date is null then
    :new.create_date := sysdate;
  end if;
end;