ORA-01461 error using jdbc 10.2.0.1.0

Question

I am using the oracle jdbc 10.2.0.1.0 ( the latest version) and oracle 10g (10.1.0.4.0) database. Sometimes, the error "ORA-01461: can bind a LONG value only for insert into a LONG column' if I use a java program to insert record to a table containing a 'long raw' field. Previously, the same java program work well with oracle 9i.
Interestingly, the 'ORA-01461' only SOMETIMES happen. If the problem appears, I need to rename the table and create a new one and then the data can be inserted.

Answer 1

After 3 days of deep analysis on my project, now I have a clear idea of the problem.
As you can find on web, newer versions of Oracle drivers for Java have the possibility to set property :
oracle.jdbc.RetainV9LongBindBehavior=true
it's considered the fix for this bug, and effectively it seems to work.
But also with this setting, drivers have one more bug!+
The problem appears in these conditions:
- Application tries to save a string into a LONG column database
- String length is more than 4000 bytes
- String has less than 4000 characters (it's possible in case of international characters, which takes more than 1 byte)
With these conditions, we have again error ORA-01461: can bind a LONG value only for insert into a LONG column.
It seems that drivers evaluate string length before saving it, and consider it as LONG only for 4000+ characters. The bug is just on this check, that must consider length in bytes, according to database character encoding, and not simply for character length.
As workaround, on my application we added a logic that appends spaces (" ") until total characters are at least 4001. In this way, string is considered correctly as LONG and storage works correctly.
The check is something similar to this:
if(value.getBytes("UTF-8").length > 4000 && value.length() < 4000)
for(int x = value.length(); x<=4000; x++)
value += " "; // always use StringBuffer for appending
This workaround works, but it's clear that it can be not acceptable in many cases, for application funcionalities. In my specific bug, it has been very useful.
My customer opened a ticket to Oracle, asking for solution of this bug. I will wait for Oracle answer.
Finally, we have to say that Oracle warned to not use anymore LONG datatype: it's deprecated since v8.0.
Bye guys ;-)
Edited by: user12274810 on 25-nov-2009 12.04