Position in external table

Question

We have excel spread sheet.
We wanted to load data from excel spread sheet to Oracle via external table.
I saved my file into .txt format.
No I need to create external table in oracle DB.
my question is as follows:
Do I need to define exact lenght of datatype per data?
Now data of column city take 16 slots in data file.
But I defined size 30, is it ok?
SQL>CREATE TABLE External_City
CITY VARCHAR2(30),
STATE VARCHAR2(20),
ZIP VARCHAR2(10),
COUNTRY VARCHAR2(30)
ORGANIZATION EXTERNAL
TYPE ORACLE_LOADER
DEFAULT DIRECTORY DATALOAD
ACCESS PARAMETERS
RECORDS DELIMITED BY NEWLINE
FIELDS TERMINATED BY ‘,’
MISSING FIELD VALUES ARE NULL
LOCATION (’city_comma.txt’)
REJECT LIMIT UNLIMITED;
Do we need to define data position in external table?

Answer 1

I do not think it has to do with your data or positon of data in it. I am not sure what or where your file is. You need to ensure accessibility to it. it is not seeing the file at all.
BTW - avoid using udump location as your directory location. Change the directory location (I am not saying it is the cause).
Here is my test. Although my class.dat file is empty, it shows that your external table should work once your file and directory is accessible. I have only replaced DATALOAD with mytest_dir
testdb@DBMSDIRECT01:/export/home/oracle/dbmsdirect/test:touch class.dat
testdb@DBMSDIRECT01:/export/home/oracle/dbmsdirect/test:sqlplus /nolog
SQL*Plus: Release 10.2.0.2.0 - Production on Mon May 19 15:34:55 2008
Copyright (c) 1982, 2005, Oracle.  All Rights Reserved.
SQL> connect testuser
Enter password:
Connected.
SQL> create or replace directory mytest_dir as '/export/home/oracle/dbmsdirect/test';
Directory created.
SQL>
SQL>
SQL> create table external_class
  2  (
  3  item_no number(10),
  4  class varchar2(255),
  5  level_date date,
  6  note varchar2(4),
  7  sched_level varchar2(10),
  8  min_range number(12),
  9  max_range number(14)
10  )
11  ORGANIZATION EXTERNAL
12  (
13  TYPE oracle_loader
14  DEFAULT DIRECTORY mytest_dir
15  ACCESS PARAMETERS (
16  RECORDS DELIMITED BY NEWLINE
17  FIELDS TERMINATED BY ','
18  MISSING FIELD VALUES ARE NULL
19  REJECT ROWS WITH ALL NULL FIELDS
20  (item_no, class, level_date, note,sched_level,min_range,max_range)
21  )
22  LOCATION ('class.dat')
23  )
24  PARALLEL
REJECT LIMIT 0;
25
Table created.
SQL> desc external_class
Name                                      Null?    Type
ITEM_NO                                            NUMBER(10)
CLASS                                              VARCHAR2(255)
LEVEL_DATE                                         DATE
NOTE                                               VARCHAR2(4)
SCHED_LEVEL                                        VARCHAR2(10)
MIN_RANGE                                          NUMBER(12)
MAX_RANGE                                          NUMBER(14)
SQL>
SQL> select * from external_class;
no rows selected
SQL>
SQL> ho rm class.dat
SQL>
SQL> select * from external_class;
select * from external_class
ERROR at line 1:
ORA-29913: error in executing ODCIEXTTABLEOPEN callout
ORA-29400: data cartridge error
KUP-04040: file class.dat in MYTEST_DIR not found
ORA-06512: at "SYS.ORACLE_LOADER", line 19
SQL>
SQL> ho touch class.dat
SQL>
SQL> select * from external_class;
no rows selected
SQL>
SQL>
SQL> col DIRECTORY_PATH format a50
SQL> set lines 200
SQL> select * from dba_directories where DIRECTORY_NAME = 'MYTEST_DIR';
OWNER                          DIRECTORY_NAME                 DIRECTORY_PATH
SYS                            MYTEST_DIR                     /export/home/oracle/dbmsdirect/test
SQL>