Oracle SQL*Loader: The Definitive Guide

Jonathan Gennick is a writer and editor. His writing career began in 1997 when he coauthored Teach Yourself PL/SQL in 21 Days. Since then, he has written several O'Reilly books, including Oracle SQL*Plus: The Definitive Guide, Oracle SQL*Plus Pocket Reference, and Oracle Net8 Configuration and Troubleshooting. He has also edited a number of books for O'Reilly and other publishers, and he recently joined O'Reilly as an associate editor, specializing in Oracle books. Jonathan was formerly a manager in KPMG's Public Services Systems Integration practice, where he was also the lead database administrator for the utilities group working out of KPMG's Detroit office. He has more than a decade of experience with relational databases. Jonathan is a member of MENSA, and he holds a bachelor of arts degree in information and computer science from Andrews University in Berrien Springs, Michigan. He currently resides in Munising, Michigan, with his wife Donna and their two children: twelve- year-old Jenny, who often wishes her father wouldn't spend quite so much time writing, and five-year-old Jeff, who has never seen it any other way. Sanjay Mishra is a certified Oracle database administrator with more than nine years of IT experience. For the past six years, he has been involved in the design, architecture, and implementation of many mission-critical and decision support databases. He has worked extensively in the areas of database architecture, database management, backup/recovery, disaster planning, performance tuning, Oracle Parallel Server, and parallel execution. he has a bachelor of science degree in electrical engineering and a master of engineering in systems science and automation. He is the coauthor of Oracle Parallel Processing (O'Reilly & Associates, 2000) and can be reached at sanjay_mishra@i2.com.

Preface. 1. Introduction to SQL*Loader The SQL*Loader Environment A Short SQL*Loader Example SQL*Loader's Capabilities Issues when Loading Data Invoking SQL*Loader. 2. The Mysterious Control File Syntax Rules The LOAD Statement Command-Line Parameters in the Control File Placing Data in the Control File. 3. Fields and Datatypes Field Specifications Datatypes. 4. Loading from Fixed-Width Files Common Datatypes Encountered Specifying Field Positions Handling Anomalous Data Concatenating Records Nesting Delimited Fields. 5. Loading Delimited Data Common Datatypes Encountered Example Data Using Delimiters to Identify Fields Common Issues with Delimited Data Concatenating Records Handling Nested Fields. 6. Recovering from Failure Deleting and Starting Over Restarting a Conventional Path Load Restarting a Direct Path Load. 7. Validating and Selectively Loading Data Handling Rejected Records Selectively Loading Data. 8. Transforming Data During a Load Using Oracle's Built-in SQL Functions Writing Your Own Functions Passing Data Through Work Tables Using Triggers Performing Character Set Conversion. 9. Transaction Size and Performance Issues Transaction Processing in SQL*Loader Commit Frequency and Load Performance Commit Frequency and Rollback Segments Performance Improvement Guidelines. 10. Direct Path Loads What is the Direct Path? Performing Direct Path Loads Data Saves Loading Data Fields Greater than 64K UNRECOVERABLE Loads Parallel Data Loading. 11. Loading Large Objects About Large Objects Considerations when Loading LOBs Loading Inline LOBs Loading LOBs from External Data Files Loading BFILEs. 12. Loading Objects and Collections Loading Object Tables and Columns Loading Collections Using NULLIF and DEFAULTIF with an Object or a Collection. Index