sqlldr: maximum length

Hello.
[Quoted] [Quoted]  I have a problem with sqlldr that I can't figure out. I use sqlldr to load data from variable length text files I receive from a web site into several oracle tables existing on a Sun E10K, (Oracle version 8.0.4). The fields are delimited by '|'. In one of the tables there is a field called PURPOSE that I've defined as VARCHAR2(512). Up until today the largest entry for this field has been 234 characters.

This morning the sqlldr routine did not load a record that contained a 391 character field for PURPOSE. The error I received was:  

        Record 4: Rejected - Error on table FORM_8871_TABLE, column PURPOSE.
        Field in data file exceeds maximum length  

The reference to "maximum length" has me confused. The PURPOSE field was defined as having up to 512 characters. I double-checked the table definition, I counted the characters in the field in the data file (391 characters), I checked for special characters in the file, I checked the data in the other fields in the data file. I can't see any problems.

[Quoted]  I copied this record to another file and tried sqlldr again. The entire record length was 782 characters. It errored out. I started deleting characters from the PURPOSE field in the file to determine if I could load the record with a shorter value. When I had a maximum field length of 255 characters I was able to load the entire record.

 Just for the sake of trying I converted this record into an INSERT statement and it worked. Though this has given me a workaround for that table, (using 'awk' to create the INSERT statements from the data file), I'd really like to find out what is going on. I load a number of other tables using sqlldr and I'd rather not have to do something different for this one table and I'd rather not have to depend on a series of individual INSERT statements for future files.

  Is there a field length specification for sqlldr? I do not have any recent updated documentation. I've referenced an Oracle 7 Utilities User's Guide for SQLLOAD but other than BINDSIZE I cannot see anything I can try to change.

I'm missing something here, hopefully something simple. Does anyone have any ideas?

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