SQL*Loader issue with NULLIF

Question

Hi all,
I am trying to use following control file,
LOAD DATA
INFILE *
REPLACE
INTO TABLE T1
FIELDS TERMINATED BY '|'
TRAILING NULLCOLS
OBJECT_NAME           CHAR              NULLIF OBJECT_NAME = "NULL" ,
SUBOBJECT_NAME        CHAR              NULLIF SUBOBJECT_NAME = "NULL" ,
OBJECT_ID             DECIMAL EXTERNAL  NULLIF OBJECT_ID = "NULL" ,
DATA_OBJECT_ID        DECIMAL EXTERNAL  NULLIF DATA_OBJECT_ID = "NULL" ,
OBJECT_TYPE           CHAR              NULLIF OBJECT_TYPE = "NULL" ,
CREATED               DATE  "DD/MM/YYYY HH24:MI:SS" NULLIF CREATED = "NULL" ,
LAST_DDL_TIME         DATE  "DD/MM/YYYY HH24:MI:SS" NULLIF LAST_DDL_TIME = "NULL" ,
TIMESTAMP             CHAR              NULLIF TIMESTAMP = "NULL" ,
STATUS                CHAR              NULLIF STATUS = "NULL" ,
TEMPORARY             CHAR              NULLIF TEMPORARY = "NULL" ,
GENERATED             CHAR              NULLIF GENERATED = "NULL" ,
SECONDARY             CHAR              NULLIF SECONDARY = "NULL"
)I am getting error,
SQL*Loader-350: Syntax error at line 21.
Expecting positive integer or column name, found keyword timestamp.
                            CHAR  NULLIF TIMESTAMP = "NULL" ,
STATUSThe file I am trying to load is a pipe delimited file and has a string "NULL" for NULL values. So, I have added NULLIF for all columns.
Interesting thing is, Oracle allows us to have column names like TIMESTAMP or GENERATED, but I use it in the NULLIF clause, it is effectively syntax error.
The table I am using is like this (it is same as user_objects view),
SQL> desc t1
Name                          Null?    Type
OBJECT_NAME                            VARCHAR2(128)
SUBOBJECT_NAME                         VARCHAR2(30)
OBJECT_ID                              NUMBER
DATA_OBJECT_ID                         NUMBER
OBJECT_TYPE                            VARCHAR2(19)
CREATED                                DATE
LAST_DDL_TIME                          DATE
TIMESTAMP                              VARCHAR2(19)
STATUS                                 VARCHAR2(7)
TEMPORARY                              VARCHAR2(1)
GENERATED                              VARCHAR2(1)
SECONDARY                              VARCHAR2(1)If I remove the NULLIF clause for columns, timestamp and generated, there is no problem, the control file works fine.
How can I get around this problem ?
Thanks in advance

Answer 1

TIMESTAMP is a keyword for the loader and confuses it.
rename your column