Best way to do multi-row insert in Oracle?

Question

I\'m looking for a good way to perform multi-row inserts into an Oracle 9 database. The following works in MySQL but doesn\'t seem to be supported in Oracle.

Answer 1

Use SQL*Loader. It takes a little setting up, but if this isn't a one off, its worth it.

Create Table

SQL> create table ldr_test (id number(10) primary key, description varchar2(20));
Table created.
SQL>

Create CSV

oracle-2% cat ldr_test.csv
1,Apple
2,Orange
3,Pear
oracle-2% 

Create Loader Control File

oracle-2% cat ldr_test.ctl 
load data

 infile 'ldr_test.csv'
 into table ldr_test
 fields terminated by "," optionally enclosed by '"'              
 ( id, description )

oracle-2% 

Run SQL*Loader command

oracle-2% sqlldr  control=ldr_test.ctl
Password:

SQL*Loader: Release 9.2.0.5.0 - Production on Wed Sep 3 12:26:46 2008

Copyright (c) 1982, 2002, Oracle Corporation.  All rights reserved.

Commit point reached - logical record count 3

Confirm insert

SQL> select * from ldr_test;

        ID DESCRIPTION
---------- --------------------
         1 Apple
         2 Orange
         3 Pear

SQL>

SQL*Loader has alot of options, and can take pretty much any text file as its input. You can even inline the data in your control file if you want.

Here is a page with some more details -> SQL*Loader