Write CLOB in stored procedure from a passed Long over 4k

Question

Hi,
I have a requirement to write a CLOB into a table as part of a stored procedure. The data to be written is passed in as a long to avoid any maximum size issues. Previously I was able to simple insert the LONG into the column which was a CLOB with no problem however we had a patch applied to out 8.1.6 database which now does not let the procedure and complains of a bad type.
To work around this I have attempted to instead convert the LONG into a temporary CLOB and write the CLOB (below is basically what it does):
CREATE PROCEDURE WRITE CLOB (data IN long)
IS
v_lob_add CLOB;
v_size integer;
BEGIN
dbms_lob.CREATETEMPORARY(v_lob_add,true,dbms_lob.call);
select vsize(data) into v_size from dual;
dbms_lob.WRITE(v_lob_add,v_size,1,pi_add);
insert into tab1 values (v_lob_add);
END ADD_LONG2LOB;
This works fine unless the LONG is over 4001 as this causes the 'select vsize(..' to fail with an 'unreasonable conversion' error.
My question is:
1, How can you get the length of a long if its over 4000
2, Can dbms_lob.WRITE be passed a length over 4000
3, If none of the above how can a LONG be converted to a CLOB for insertion
4, Is it a bug that I can't just insert the LONG into the CLOB column (which I could do before this patch was installed 2 days ago!).
Many thanks for your time.
John

Answer 1

Worked out how to get LONG length so just for anyones interest the following works fine:
PROCEDURE INSERT_INCOMING2(
chr_MMS_REF IN CHAR,
chr_NATIVE_MSG IN LONG,
) IS
v_lob2 CLOB;
v_size integer;
y varchar2(100);
BEGIN
dbms_lob.CREATETEMPORARY(v_lob2,true,dbms_lob.call);
v_size :=0;
loop
y := substr(chr_NATIVE_MSG,v_size,100);
exit when y is null;
v_size := v_size + length(y);
end loop;
v_size:=v_size-1;
dbms_lob.WRITE(v_lob2, v_size,1, chr_NATIVE_MSG);
INSERT INTO INCOMING (MMS_REF, NATIVE_MSG) VALUES(
chr_MMS_REF,
v_lob2,);
END INSERT_INCOMING2;