Use of UTL_FILE package

Question

Hi,
I am trying to use the following command:
UTL_FILE.FOPEN('/HOME/SCMS/DUNNING/OUTPUT/','DUNNING_ACCT_YYYYMMDD.PSC','W');
however i get an error invalid directory name.
can anyone please advise how to assign the location as the name of a local directory eg....D:\xyz

Answer 1

You need to use CREATE DIRECTORY statement to create a directory and use that name in fopen.
SQL> CREATE DIRECTORY mydir AS '/appl/gl/log';
SQL> GRANT READ ON DIRECTORY mydir TO DBA;
DECLARE
  V1 VARCHAR2(32767);
  F1 UTL_FILE.FILE_TYPE;
BEGIN
  -- In this example MAX_LINESIZE is less than GET_LINE's length request
  -- so the number of bytes returned will be 256 or less if a line terminator is seen.
  F1 := UTL_FILE.FOPEN('MYDIR','MYFILE','R',256);
  UTL_FILE.GET_LINE(F1,V1,32767);
  UTL_FILE.FCLOSE(F1);
  -- In this example, FOPEN's MAX_LINESIZE is NULL and defaults to 1024,
  -- so the number of bytes returned will be 1024 or less if a line terminator is seen.
  F1 := UTL_FILE.FOPEN('MYDIR','MYFILE','R');
  UTL_FILE.GET_LINE(F1,V1,32767);
  UTL_FILE.FCLOSE(F1);
  -- In this example, GET_LINE doesn't specify a number of bytes, so it defaults to
  -- the same value as FOPEN's MAX_LINESIZE which is NULL in this case and defaults to 1024.
  -- So the number of bytes returned will be 1024 or less if a line terminator is seen.
  F1 := UTL_FILE.FOPEN('MYDIR','MYFILE','R');
  UTL_FILE.GET_LINE(F1,V1);
  UTL_FILE.FCLOSE(F1);
END; This is an example from Oracle docs. You better go through that first.
Cheers
Sarma.