Oracle – Use of UTL_FILE to read external OS file into Oracle RDBMS.

Oracle provides the procedure UTL_FILE to allow for the reading of external OS layer files from within the Oracle RDBMS. This article will give an example of how to read the contents of an external OS file and display it in the Oracle database.

1. Logon to your Oracle database server as the Oracle software owner.

2. Create a file called read.txt with the following text.

This is line one.

3. Logon to SQL*PLUS with an account which has DBA privileges. In this example we are using the account LJCATT.

mylinux:> sqlplus ljcatt

SQL*Plus: Release 10.2.0.4.0 – Production on Thu Jan 29 23:28:23 2009

Copyright (c) 1982, 2007, Oracle. All Rights Reserved.

Enter password:

Connected to:
Oracle Database 10g Enterprise Edition Release 10.2.0.4.0 – 64bit Production
With the Partitioning, OLAP, Data Mining and Real Application Testing options

SQL>

4. Create the procedure read_file as detailed below.

create or replace procedure read_file
is

v_record varchar2(50);
v_file varchar2(30) := ‘read.txt’;
v_dir varchar2(512) := ‘/home/lufsora’;
v_write utl_file.file_type;
begin

v_write:=utl_file.fopen(v_dir, v_file, ‘r’, 2000);

utl_file.get_line(v_write,v_record, v_record);

dbms_output.put_line(v_record);

utl_file.fclose(v_write);

end read_file;
/

5. Execute the procedure read_file with the command execute and the test within the OS file will be display.

SQL> execute read_file;
This is line one.

PL/SQL procedure successfully completed.

SQL>

This completes the use of UTL_FILE to read OS level files into your Oracle RDBMS.

Larry J. Catt, OCP9i, 10g
oracle@allcompute.com
www.allcompute.com