Re: A flat ASCII file. That's all I want. Just a flat ASCII file..

From article <31008_at_darkstar.ucsc.edu>, by vangogh_at_ucscb.ucsc.edu (vangogh):  

> Okay, I'm trying to get a flat data file out of Oracle. Just a flat ASCII
> file, with fields separated by pipes. I want to do this in both sqlplus and
> sqlrep. Can anyone help me out?

Yes, I have been using this method for a while: execute your SELECT with these options:

  ttitle off;
  btitle off;
  clear breaks;
  set echo off;
  set embedded on;
  set feedback off;
  set flush off;
  set heading off;
  set linesize 500;
  set long 400;
  set newpage 0;
  set null '_';
  set pagesize 1;
  set space 10;
  set tab on;
  set trimout on;

then pipe the output through a process defined by this 'lex' script:

  \f[\t ]* ;
  (\n\f[\t ]*)+ putchar( '\n');
  [\t ]*\t[\t ]* putchar( '|');

If you don't run Oracle under UNIX, then improvise this last bit ...

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