running sqlldr control files in UNIX - oracle

Question

I have a question. I have this control files that works fine when I run it from a windows client. However when I run it directly in Linux, it shows load complete but when I look at my oracle data, there is NO DATA and there are even bad records. Below is my control file that works well in windows but fails in Linux.
NOTE: The control file works if I remove the string or date converted fields
Control file
load data
infile 'HOME/INPUT/FILEA.dat'
badfile 'HOME/BAD/FILEA.bad'
discardfile 'HOME/DIS/FILEA.dsc'
truncate
into table TEST
fields terminated by '|'
trailing nullcols
( ABCcode CHAR(11),
ABCID CHAR(6),
ABC_SEQNO "to_number(:ABC_SEQNO,'999999')",
PSNO "to_number(:PSNO,'99999999999.999')",
ABDF CHAR(1),
ABCFI CHAR(1),
ABC_DATE NULLIF ABC_DATE="00000000" "to_date(:ABC_DATE, 'YYYYMMDD')",
XZY_date NULLIF XZY_date="00000000" "to_date(:XZY_date, 'YYYYMMDD')",
DESC CHAR(1))
Any help or ideas to get this code to run in Linux will be appreciated
Notes about the logfile: The logfile had the following
ORA-00604: error occurred at recursive SQL level 1
ORA-12899: value too large for column "ABCschema"."TEST"."ABC_DATE" (actual: 9, maximum: 8)
Also, the date conversion had the following
NULL if ABC_DATE = 0X3030303030303030(character '00000000')
SQL string for column : "to_date(:ABC_DATE, 'YYYYMMDD')"

Answer 1

Your TEST table has the ABC_DATE column defined as VARCHAR2(8), not as a DATE.
If I create a table as:
create table test (
ABCcode VARCHAR2(11),
ABCID VARCHAR2(6),
ABC_SEQNO NUMBER,
PSNO NUMBER,
ABDF VARCHAR2(1),
ABCFI VARCHAR2(1),
ABC_DATE DATE,
XZY_date DATE,
"DESC" VARCHAR2(1)
);
and have a data file with:
A|B|1|2.3|C|D|20140217|20140218|E
then it loads fine. If I recreate the table as:
create table test (
ABCcode VARCHAR2(11),
ABCID VARCHAR2(6),
ABC_SEQNO NUMBER,
PSNO NUMBER,
ABDF VARCHAR2(1),
ABCFI VARCHAR2(1),
ABC_DATE VARCHAR2(8),
XZY_date DATE,
"DESC" VARCHAR2(1)
);
... then the same control file and data file now give me:
Record 1: Rejected - Error on table TEST, column ABC_DATE.
ORA-12899: value too large for column "<schema>"."TEST"."ABC_DATE" (actual: 9, maximum: 8)
You are converting the string value to a date, but then you're doing an implicit conversion back to a string when it actually inserts the data into the VARCHAR2 column. When it does that it's using your NLS_DATE_FORMAT settings, and the error I got was from having that set to DD-MON-RR.
You have three options really. Either modify your table to have actual DATE columns; or change the control file so it just inserts the plain text value and doesn't do the date conversion at all; or massage your environment so the conversion back to a string gets the format you want the string to be.
Only the first one is really sensible - if it's a date value, always store it as a DATE, never as a string.
The 0X30... thing isn't a problem, that's just showing the internal representation it's using.