Please Help Me Out of The Error

Question

Hello Everyone,
I am executing the following Syntax to create a procedure which will spool all the data of my employee table and dumped into a Text file. The Procedure is creating successfully, but problem is when I am Executing the Procedure I am getting an error.
The Syntax I am using to create the Procedure is:
CREATE OR REPLACE PROCEDURE dump_emp
IS
file_handle UTL_FILE.FILE_TYPE;
BEGIN
file_handle := UTL_FILE.FOPEN('c:\file_dir\','dump.txt','w');
FOR emp_rec IN (SELECT * FROM MANOJIT.EMPLOYEES) LOOP
UTL_FILE.PUT_LINE(file_handle, emp_rec.emp_id || ',' || emp_rec.ename || ',' || emp_rec.department_id || ',' || emp_rec.salary);
END LOOP;
UTL_FILE.FCLOSE(file_handle);
END dump_emp;
The Error I am Getting when I Execute the Procedure is:
ERROR at line 1:
ORA-06510: PL/SQL: unhandled user-defined exception
ORA-06512: at "SYS.UTL_FILE", line 98
ORA-06512: at "SYS.UTL_FILE", line 157
ORA-06512: at "SYS.DUMP_EMP", line 5
ORA-06512: at line 1
Please Help me in this matter.

Answer 1

One of the quirks of UTL_FILE is that its execptions are treated by Oracle as user defined - hence the cryptic message. In order to find which error you're getting you'll need to put in an EXCEPTION section and trap the UTL_FILE exceptions - see the docs for details.
I would guess that the problem you're getting is this: your database is on a server and you're trying to write to your client machine (i.e. your PC). You can't do this. PL/SQL is a server-side language and can only see the directories on the database machine. If you want to dump stuff to your local machine you have to use the SQL*Plus spool command, using DBMS_OUTPUT instead of UTL_FILE if you want complex assemblages.
cheers, APC