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

I know this is an old thread, however I noticed that no one mentioned the underline option, which can remove the underlines under the column headings.

set pagesize 50000--50k is the max as of 12c
set linesize 10000   
set trimspool on  --remove trailing blankspaces
set underline off --remove the dashes/underlines under the col headers
set colsep ~

select * from DW_TMC_PROJECT_VW;

Answer 2

I have once written a little SQL*Plus script that uses dbms_sql and dbms_output to create a csv (actually an ssv). You can find it on my githup repository.

Answer 3

spool D:\test.txt

    select * from emp
    
    spool off

Answer 4

You could use csv hint. See the following example:

select /*csv*/ table_name, tablespace_name
from all_tables
where owner = 'SYS'
and tablespace_name is not null;

Answer 5

I see a similar problem...

I need to spool CSV file from SQLPLUS, but the output has 250 columns.

What I did to avoid annoying SQLPLUS output formatting:

set linesize 9999
set pagesize 50000
spool myfile.csv
select x
from
(
select col1||';'||col2||';'||col3||';'||col4||';'||col5||';'||col6||';'||col7||';'||col8||';'||col9||';'||col10||';'||col11||';'||col12||';'||col13||';'||col14||';'||col15||';'||col16||';'||col17||';'||col18||';'||col19||';'||col20||';'||col21||';'||col22||';'||col23||';'||col24||';'||col25||';'||col26||';'||col27||';'||col28||';'||col29||';'||col30 as x
from (  
      ...  here is the "core" select
     )
);
spool off

the problem is you will lose column header names...

you can add this:

set heading off
spool myfile.csv
select col1_name||';'||col2_name||';'||col3_name||';'||col4_name||';'||col5_name||';'||col6_name||';'||col7_name||';'||col8_name||';'||col9_name||';'||col10_name||';'||col11_name||';'||col12_name||';'||col13_name||';'||col14_name||';'||col15_name||';'||col16_name||';'||col17_name||';'||col18_name||';'||col19_name||';'||col20_name||';'||col21_name||';'||col22_name||';'||col23_name||';'||col24_name||';'||col25_name||';'||col26_name||';'||col27_name||';'||col28_name||';'||col29_name||';'||col30_name from dual;

select x
from
(
select col1||';'||col2||';'||col3||';'||col4||';'||col5||';'||col6||';'||col7||';'||col8||';'||col9||';'||col10||';'||col11||';'||col12||';'||col13||';'||col14||';'||col15||';'||col16||';'||col17||';'||col18||';'||col19||';'||col20||';'||col21||';'||col22||';'||col23||';'||col24||';'||col25||';'||col26||';'||col27||';'||col28||';'||col29||';'||col30 as x
from (  
      ...  here is the "core" select
     )
);
spool off

I know it`s kinda hardcore, but it works for me...

Answer 6

You can explicitly format the query to produce a delimited string with something along the lines of:

select '"'||foo||'","'||bar||'"'
  from tab

And set up the output options as appropriate. As an option, the COLSEP variable on SQLPlus will let you produce delimited files without having to explicitly generate a string with the fields concatenated together. However, you will have to put quotes around strings on any columns that might contain embedded comma characters.