Re: Oracle 7.3, parsing the contents of a LONG column?

From: <Lane_Associates_at_Compuserve.com>
Date: Thu, 23 Apr 1998 04:10:54 -0600
Message-ID: <6hn0it$cue$1_at_nnrp1.dejanews.com>


Guy,

yes it is true that you cannot use substr etc on a long column as part of an SQL query, but you can retrieve the long column into a varchar2 variable and then use substr as part of your PLSQL code.

You do of course have to be sure that the maximum length of data in your long column is no greater than the maximum length that your version of PLSQL will allow, eg 32k in v7.3.

But then the max length of a PLSQL Long in v7.3 is 32k anyway.

If its mega bytes you want to handle you could always use an external dll via ORA-FFI to retreive, parse and return in 32k chunks. [ messy but ..... ]

regards

Rod Corderey
Lane Associates
Lane_Associates_at_Compuserve.com
http://www.Lane-Associates.com

In article <353E0295.424D38F7_at_syllogistics.com>,   Guy Starbuck <guy.starbuck_at_syllogistics.com> wrote:
>
> I want to use a PL/SQL procedure to process the contents of a single
> LONG column. This column will be filled with the contents of a fixed
> format but variable length flat file.
>
> Since you cannot use "substr" or other string parsing functions on a
> LONG column, does anyone know of any SQL or PL/SQL functions which can
> be used to extract sections of a LONG column?
>
> Any help would be appreciated.
>
> Guy Starbuck
> guy.starbuck_at_syllogistics.com
>

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