Trying to Create External Table in 8i

Question

hi Grus,
We are still on 8.1.7 version. And oracle 8i doesn't support the External table feature. last week i found a very useful documentation to access an operating system file from SQPLUS. but i am having a small problem, may be one of you guys can give me a tip if i am doing something wrong. below is the story.
1) i created a object type with 4 attributes in database.
CREATE OR REPLACE TYPE Artist_Row_Type AS OBJECT
ARTIST_ID NUMBER(10),
LASTNAME VARCHAR2(255),
FIRSTNAME VARCHAR2(255),
LASTNAMEFIRSTNAME VARCHAR2(255)
2) Then i created a collection type of obove object type.
CREATE OR REPLACE TYPE artist_tab_type AS TABLE OF artist_row_type;
3) Created a function
CREATE OR REPLACE FUNCTION Get_Artist
RETURN artist_tab_type
IS
artist_tab artist_tab_type := artist_tab_type ();
l_file UTL_FILE.file_type;
l_text VARCHAR2 (2000);
l_orig_str VARCHAR2 (2000);
cnt PLS_INTEGER := 0;
l_start_pos INTEGER := 1;
l_end_pos INTEGER := 1;
TYPE xyz IS TABLE OF VARCHAR2 (2000)
INDEX BY BINARY_INTEGER;
var xyz;
BEGIN
l_file := UTL_FILE.fopen ('/export/home/taskmgr/SA/DAT', 'artist.dat', 'r');
BEGIN
FOR i IN 1 .. 4
LOOP
var (i) := ' ';
END LOOP;
LOOP
UTL_FILE.get_line (l_file, l_text);
FOR i IN var.FIRST .. var.LAST
LOOP
IF l_end_pos <> 0
THEN
l_end_pos := INSTR (l_text, '|', l_start_pos);
IF l_end_pos = 0
THEN
var (i) := l_text;
END IF;
l_orig_str := l_text;
l_text := SUBSTR (l_text, INSTR (l_text, '|') + 1);
IF l_end_pos <> 0
THEN
var (i) := SUBSTR (l_orig_str, 1, INSTR (l_orig_str, '|') - 1);
END IF;
END IF;
END LOOP;
artist_tab.EXTEND;
artist_tab (artist_tab.LAST) := artist_row_type (var (1), var (2), var (3), var (4));
END LOOP;
EXCEPTION
WHEN NO_DATA_FOUND
THEN
NULL;
END;
UTL_FILE.fclose (l_file);
RETURN artist_tab;
END;
suppoose first line in a external file is '14522|||Lessig|||Minna|||Lessig, Minna'
and when i execute the following query.
select * FROM TABLE(Cast(Get_Artist() AS artist_tab_Type));
i get the following result.
ARTIST_ID LASTNAME FIRSTNAME LASTNAMEFIRSTNAME
14522 Lessig
while i should get the following result
ARTIST_ID LASTNAME FIRSTNAME LASTNAMEFIRSTNAME
14522 Lessing Minna Lessig, Minna
is any body can have look in my function code if something is missing please let me know.
Thanks
Asif

Answer 1

The data in your file is separated by ||| (three pipes) but your routine is using | (one pipe) as its token.
Cheers, APC