How do I spool to a CSV formatted file using SQLPLUS?

Question

I want to extract some queries to a CSV output format. Unfortunately, I can\'t use any fancy SQL client or any language to do it. I must use SQLPLUS.

How do I do it?

Answer 1

You should be aware that values of fields could contain commas and quotation characters, so some of the suggested answers would not work, as the CSV output file would not be correct. To replace quotation characters in a field, and replace it with the double quotation character, you can use the REPLACE function that oracle provides, to change a single quote to double quote.

set echo off
set heading off
set feedback off
set linesize 1024   -- or some other value, big enough
set pagesize 50000
set verify off
set trimspool on

spool output.csv
select trim(
       '"'   || replace(col1, '"', '""') || 
       '","' || replace(col2, '"', '""') ||
       '","' || replace(coln, '"', '""') || '"' ) -- etc. for all the columns
from   yourtable
/
spool off

Or, if you want the single quote character for the fields:

set echo off
set heading off
set feedback off
set linesize 1024   -- or some other value, big enough
set pagesize 50000
set verify off
set trimspool on

spool output.csv
select trim(
'"'   || replace(col1, '''', '''''') || 
'","' || replace(col2, '''', '''''') ||
'","' || replace(coln, '''', '''''') || '"' ) -- etc. for all the columns
from   yourtable
/
spool off