SQL*Loader Control File Tips

Oracle Database Tips by Donald BurlesonDon Burleson

The sqlldr Control File

The SQL*Loader control file contains information that describes how the data will be loaded. It contains the table name, column datatypes, field delimiters, etc. The SQL*Loader control file simply provides the guts for all SQL*Loader processing.

Manually creating SQL*Loader control files is an error-prone process. The following SQL script can be used to generate an accurate SQL*Loader control file for a given table. The script accepts a table name and a date format (to be used for date columns), and generates a valid control file to use with SQL*Loader for that table.

Once executed and given a table name and date format, the script below will generate a control file with the SQL*Loader control file contents:

See code download for script

The SQL*Loader control file can also specify that records are in fixed format. A file is in fixed record format when all records in a datafile are the same length. The SQL*Loader control file specifies the specific starting and ending byte location of each field. This format is harder to create and less flexible but can yield performance benefits. A SQL*Loader control file specifying a fixed format for the same table could look like the following:

LOAD DATA

INFILE 'table_with_one_million_rows.dat'
INTO TABLE TABLE_WITH_ONE_MILLION_ROWS
(
COL1 POSITION(1:4) INTEGER EXTERNAL
, COL2 POSITION(6:9) INTEGER EXTERNAL
, COL3 POSITION(11:46) CHAR
, col4 position(48:83) CHAR
, col5 position(85:120) CHAR
, COL6 POSITION(122:130) DATE "MMDDYYYY"
)

Also see my notes on the SQL*Loader bad file and discard file

See these related notes on SQL*Loader:

SQL*Loader load speed tips

Optimize Oracle SQL*Loader (sqlldr) Performance

SQL*Loader (sqlldr) Utility tips

Oracle SQL*Loader External Tables

Monitoring SQL*Loader Inserts

Oracle SQL*Loader Control File

Loading CLOB data with sqlldr (SQL*Loader)

SQL*Loader - loading data into multiple tables

Using SQL*Loader to Reorganize Oracle Tables

Oracle SQL*Loader speed tips

Oracle SQL*Loader commit point tips

OTN Technical Note On Improving SQL*Loader Performance

SQL*Loader with tab delimited data

ORA-01722: invalid number & SQL*Loader

SQL*Loader readsize tips

Fix SQL*Loader date format errors

Loading large datasets with SQL*Loader

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