Re: problem with longvarchar... reads as long

On Oct 10, 7:07 pm, Mark D Powell <Mark.Pow..._at_eds.com> wrote:
> On Oct 9, 12:15 pm, "fitzjarr..._at_cox.net" <fitzjarr..._at_cox.net> wrote:
> > On Oct 9, 10:03 am,SonnichJensen <sonnich.jen..._at_jotautomation.com>
> > wrote:
> > > On Oct 9, 5:22 pm, "fitzjarr..._at_cox.net" <fitzjarr..._at_cox.net> wrote:
> > > > On Oct 9, 8:46 am,SonnichJensen <sonnich.jen..._at_jotautomation.com>
> > > > wrote:
>
> > > > > Hi
>
> > > > > I have a problem when reading a longvarchar, displays as memo in DB
> > > > > Explorer. It reads, but when reading in excel it gives an error (just
> > > > > that).
> > > > > When playing around in DB explorer, I cannot use casting as char, the
> > > > > error: expected char, got long.
>
> > > > > In the SQL I cannot use || and add something to it.
>
> > > > > NVL fails too.
>
> > > > > What should I do?
>
> > > >http://asktom.oracle.com/pls/asktom/f?p=100:11:0::::P11_QUESTION_ID:8...
>
> > > Well, unfortunately I cannot create anything on the DB. That leaves me
> > > to find a solution on SQL only.
> > > Or, it is not possible to do.
>
> > > WBR
> > >Sonnich- Hide quoted text -
>
> > > - Show quoted text -
>
> > LONG columns don't play nicely with SQL*Plus or many other tools. I
> > suspect you'll need to forget this if you can't process the data using
> > PL/SQL. Simply because someone writes a function doesn't mean you
> > can't apply something similar with an anonymous PL/SQL block. And it
> > also depends upon what you intend to do with this data once you get it
> > 'extracted'.
>
> > It may well be that you can't do what you want given that you're using
> > a LONG column.
>
> > David Fitzjarrell- Hide quoted text -
>
> > - Show quoted text -
>
> 1 - What is DB Explorer?

Borland tool for browsing databases. There are better software, but it is easy to use for testing.

> 2 - What is the length of the actual data? Just as Excel has a limit
> to the number of rows of data that it can handle (64k) I would think
> that there is also a limit to the length of any cell's data.

484 bytes.

> 3 - The long data type is officially obsolete and where possible
> tables with long columns should be converted to using LOB columns.
>
> Just tagging along for info.
> -- Mark D Powell --
>
> The Long data type is obsolete and only exists for backward
> compatiability

Problem; the DB is probably some ~15 years old... and it far out of my reach.

WBR
Sonnich Received on Thu Oct 25 2007 - 23:31:08 CDT