UTL_File and files > 1022 bytes - HOW?

Hi Folks;

    I have a data feed that I need to process and read into a table. I had done a small test with the UTL_FILE and was in reasonably good shape. UNTIL I found out about the record length limit of 1022 bytes! (Oracle ver.7.3 - A number which is in my mind astonishingly low!) As you can probably guess by now, my data feed has records that are 1058 bytes in length . How stuck am I? I cannot believe nobody has faced this one before. As I see it, I have a few options:

I can pre-process the data to reduce the record length to < 1023 bytes via a Perl(with DBI) or Pro*C (can I?) program. But by the time I have done all the I/O to cut the record length, I might as well finish the job and create a comma-delimited list that I can then feed through COMMA_TO_TABLE. Has anybody else run into this and is there a recommended way of dealing with this? Anyone written a utility that can be called from PL/SQL? I'm open to options right now. Thanks all for your continued assistance.

Kathy Graham
I.T. Engineer/HP Labs
kathy_graham_at_nomail.hp.hp.com <--Remove nomail for mail Received on Thu Sep 03 1998 - 11:36:54 CDT