Spool CSV file using BASH Script | Errors with Output in generated CSV - oracle

Question

I need to spool the output of tables from db to CSV file.
I checked and referred to How do I spool to a CSV formatted file using SQLPLUS?
But it's not working successfully. What I am getting is only the first 3 columns being separated by , and not the remaining. Others are getting separated by newline.
EDIT : Schema Details of Table being Spooled.
WWID VARCHAR2 (5 Byte)
TIMELOG_DATE DATE
TOTAL_HOURS NUMBER (10,2)
ACTIVITY VARCHAR2 (100 Byte)
SUBACTIVITY VARCHAR2 (100 Byte)
REF_PROJECT_ID VARCHAR2 (30 Byte)
REF_PROJECT_DESC VARCHAR2 (250 Byte)
WORK_REQUEST_ID VARCHAR2 (30 Byte)
EMP_COMMENTS VARCHAR2 (100 Byte)
APPROVER_COMMENTS VARCHAR2 (100 Byte)
Script:
echo "\n>>> ******Data Processing Started at `date '+%d-%m-%Y %T %Z'`******" >>${LOGFILE}
sqlplus $fims_user/$fims_pwd << EOF
set serveroutput on;
set colsep , ;-- separate columns with a comma
set pagesize 0 ;-- No header rows
set trimspool on ;-- remove trailing blanks
set headsep off ;-- this may be useful...depends on your headings.
spool /home/fimsctl/datafiles/outbound/timelog/timelog_file_`date +%y%m%d`.csv
select * from FIMS_OWNER.TIMELOG_EXTRACT_OUTBOUND_T;
commit;
spool off
exit
EOF
echo "\n>>> ******Data Load Completed at `date '+%d-%m-%Y %T %Z'`******" >>${LOGFILE}
echo "End of the script">> ${LOGFILE}
And Output in CSV i am getting is:
SQL> select * from FIMS_OWNER.TIMELOG_EXTRACT_OUTBOUND_T;
iv315,29-DEC-14, 8
DUMMY
REF01
New Ref Project of type CPRM
66
NA
iv315,30-DEC-14, 8
DUMMY
REF01
New Ref Project of type CPRM
66
NA
iv315,31-DEC-14, 8
DUMMY
REF01
New Ref Project of type CPRM
66
NA
That is values are then separated by newline(when seen in wordpad)
Thanks

Answer 1

The defaut linesize is 80 characters, so by default columns will wrap onto new lines when that length will be exceeded. Your 100-byte columns will cause that behaviour. You can add SQL*Plus commands to change that:
-- any number at least as large as the longest possible output
set linesize 1024
set wrap off
select * is generally frowned up as the output can change unexpectedly if the table definition changes - i.e. a column is added - or if the table has columns in different orders in different environments. (Which arguably shouldn't happen with source control, and generally doesn't matter as long as you don't use *. If you list the columns you want explicitly, it isn't much extra work to concatenate them with manually-added separators, e.g:
select wwid
||','|| to_char(timelog_date, 'DD-MON-YY') -- or another format
||','|| total_hours
||','|| activity
||','|| subactivity
... -- etc
from FIMS_OWNER.TIMELOG_EXTRACT_OUTBOUND_T;
That will remove extra whitespace that is currently going to pad all the CSV rows to the same length, and reduce the output file size. The output is then a single column, so the colsep setting isn't relevant any more.