SQL Loader Error: “Variable length field exceeds maximum length.”

Question

I have a SQL Loader Control file,

LOAD DATA  
INFILE \'test.txt\'  
INTO TABLE TEST replace  
fields terminated \"|\" optionally enclosed by \'\"\' TRAILING          


        

Answer 1

+1 for DCookie, but to expand on that it's important to distinguish between data types as specified in a table and data types in a SQL*loader control file as they mean rather different things, confusingly.

Start with a look at the the documentation, and note that when loading regular text files you need to be using the "portable" data types.

Varchar is a "non-portable" type, in which:

... consists of a binary length subfield followed by a character string of the specified length

So as DCookie says, CHAR is the thing to go for, and INTEGER EXTERNAL is a very commonly used SQL*Loader data type which you'd probably want to specify for DOCUMENTID etc.

Answer 2

Don't define your data fields as VARCHAR2 and INTEGER. Use CHAR. Most of the time, when loading data from a text file, you want to use CHAR, or perhaps DATE, although even that is converted from a text form. Most of the time you don't even need a length specifier. The default length for a CHAR field is 255. Your control file should look something like:

LOAD DATA
INFILE "test.txt"
INTO TABLE TEST replace
fields terminated "|" optionally enclosed by '"' TRAILING NULLCOLS
(
  DOCUMENTID,
  CUSTID,
  USERID ,
  FILENAME,
  LABEL,
  DESCRIPTION CHAR(2000),
  POSTDATE DATE "YYYY-MM-DD HH24:MI:SS" NULLIF POSTDATE=BLANKS,
  USERFILENAME,
  STORAGEPATH
)