BIZARRE problem with OCI array bind, insert

Here is one for the OCI experts out there ... (sorry it is a bit long)

Platform:
Oracle 8i 8.1.5 on Sun Sparc Solaris 7

Background:
I have written a simple database conversion utility that connects to both Sybase and Oracle, reads the Sybase system tables to get the schema info, creates the equivalent schema in an empty Oracle database, and then copies all the data over. The data copy part copies a large number of rows at a time by using a bulk bind for Sybase, storing the data in arrays, and then uses an array bind in the OCI to transfer the data in those arrays to Oracle. The Sybase database being copied has around 430 tables and is about 250 Megs in size.

The Problem:
For only ONE table, I am getting an "Invalid Column Name" error during the data copy part of the operation. The schema creation part of my utility works fine - no complaints when creating the table, so presumeably I am not using a reserved word for the table name or any column names. Only when I issue the insert statement with column placeholders do I get the error. The exact same code is running to do this table as for others, so I know that the generation of the statement works. If I use sqlplus, I can do a desc of the table and it works. Also with sqlplus, I can manually insert a row into the table (specifying a column list and values list the same way as my program does except with real values instead of placeholders) and then query the table and there is no problem. The name of the table is "Help", it has 22 columns, and most of those are named identically to columns in other tables (ie. "Name", "HouseKeeping_State", "ObjectId", etc). There are only 5 columns whose names are unique to this table - "Topic",
"SummaryLine", "HelpFile", "ReferenceNumber", and "SectionName". None
of these appear in the list of reserved words for Oracle 8i 8.1.5, and the fact that there is no problem creating the table would imply that they are indeed not reserved words.

Remember that over 400 other tables with 2 to 70 columns copy over fine with the exact same code generating all the statements, array binds, etc. so I don't think it is a bug in my code. I have also used a debugger to print the sql insert statement just before it gets sent to Oracle via the OCI and cut and paste the statement into sqlplus. The only complaint is about placeholders not being bound (understandable), but no "Invalid Column Name" error. When I let the program continue,
"Invalid Column Name" is exactly what the OCI gives me.

I am totally stumped - any ideas out there??

Thanks very much for any responses.

Brad Lotsberg, EET.

email: lotsberg_at_willowglen.ab.ca Received on Mon Jun 26 2000 - 00:00:00 CDT