External tables are a great idea. I found a good example here
http://www.oracle-base.com/articles/9i/SQLNewFeatures9i.php and also in
the oracle users guide. The trouble I had with it is that I could not
create the default directory again because of the issue of privileges.
I found a better solution though in the form of temporary tables. You
can read more about it here.
http://www.oracle-base.com/articles/8i/TemporaryTables.php
I used excel to construct my insert statements for one row and copy
formulas down then pasted into my sql script. Obviously if you have a
really large data set this might not be for you but still it's a good
workaround if you don't have create permissions on your db.
r.
Received on Thu Nov 17 2005 - 10:16:45 CST
