I have a table in Oracle that stores files as byte arrays in a BLOB field. I want my client to be able to download the stored file in small chunks (as opposed to downloading the whole thing all at once) so I can display a progress bar.
How can I write an Oracle query that retrieves only part of the contents of a BLOB field? I imagine it would be something like this:
SELECT PARTOF(BLOBFIELD, 1000, 2000) AS CHUNK FROM tbl WHERE ID = 1
if I wanted to get 1000 bytes from BLOBFIELD starting at byte 2000.
As a secondary question, are there any performance issues with this? If Oracle has to load the entire BLOB field into memory in order to return part of it, then this wouldn't be a very good idea.
Can you use DBMS_LOB.READ (lob_loc, amount, offset, buffer)?
Related
I work on a project to transfer data from an Oracle database to a PostgreSQL database to create a datawarehouse with bash & SQL scripts. To access to the Oracle database, I use the PostgreSQL extension oracle-fdw.
One of my scripts import data from a massive table (~ 100 000 000 new rows/day). This table is partitioned and each partition contains 1 day of data. The query I use to import data looks like that :
INSERT INTO postgre_target_table (some_fields)
SELECT some_aggregated_fields -- (~150 fields)
FROM oracle_source_table
WHERE partition_id = :v_partition_id AND some_others_filters
GROUP BY primary_key;
On DEV server, the query works fine (there is much less data on this server) but in PREPROD, it returns the error ORA-01406: fetched column value was truncated.
In some posts, people say that the output fields may be too small but if I try to send a simple SELECT query without INSERT or GROUP BY I have the same error.
Another idea I found in another post is to create an Oracle side view but in my query I use multiple parameters that I cannot use in a view.
The last idea I found is to create an Oracle stored procedure that fills a table with aggregated data and then import data from this table but the Oracle database is critical and my customer prefers to avoid adding more data on it.
Now, I'm starting to think there's no solution and it's not good...
PostgreSQL version : 12.4 / Oracle version : 11.2
UPDATE
It seems my problem is more complecated than I thought.
After applying the modification given by Laurenz Albe, the query runs correctly on PGAdmin but the problem still appears when I use psql command.
Moreover, another query seems to have the same problem. This other query does not use the same source table as the first query, it uses 4 joined tables without any partition. The common point between these queries is the structure.
The detail I omit to specify in the original post is that the purpose of both queries is to pivot a table. They look like that :
SELECT osr.id,
MIN(CASE osr.category
WHEN 123 THEN
1
END) AS field1,
MIN(CASE osr.category
WHEN 264 THEN
1
END) AS field2,
MIN(CASE osr.category
WHEN 975 THEN
1
END) AS field3,
...
FROM oracle_source_table osr
WHERE osr.category IN (123, 264, 975, ...)
GROUP BY osr.id;
Now that I have detailed what the queries look like, I can give you some results I had with the second one without changing the value of max_long (this query is lighter than the first one) :
Sometimes it works (~10%), sometimes it failed (~90%) on PGadmin but it never works with psql command
If I delete the WHERE, it always works
I don't understand why deleting the WHERE change something, the field used in this clause is a NUMBER(6, 0) between 0 and 2500 and it is still used in the SELECT clause... Oh and in the 4 Oracle tables used by this query, there is no LONG datatype, only NUMBER datatype is used.
Among 20 queries I have, only these two have a problem, their structure is similar and I don't believe in coincidences.
Don't despair!
Set the max_long option on the foreign table big enough that all your oversized data fit.
The documentation has the details:
max_long (optional, defaults to "32767")
The maximal length of any LONG, LONG RAW and XMLTYPE columns in the Oracle table. Possible values are integers between 1 and 1073741823 (the maximal size of a bytea in PostgreSQL). This amount of memory will be allocated at least twice, so large values will consume a lot of memory.
If max_long is less than the length of the longest value retrieved, you will receive the error message
ORA-01406: fetched column value was truncated
Example:
ALTER FOREIGN TABLE my_tab OPTIONS (ADD max_long '1000000');
Questions have been asked in the past that seems to handle pieces of my full question, but I'm not finding a totally good answer.
Here is the situation:
I'm importing data from an old, but operational and production, Oracle server.
One of the columns is created as LONG RAW.
I will not be able to convert the table to a BLOB.
I would like to use a global temporary table to pull out data each time I call to the server.
This feels like a good answer, from here: How to create a temporary table in Oracle
CREATE GLOBAL TEMPORARY TABLE newtable
ON COMMIT PRESERVE ROWS
AS SELECT
MYID, TO_LOB("LONGRAWDATA") "BLOBDATA"
FROM oldtable WHERE .....;
I do not want the table hanging around, and I'd only do a chunk of rows at a time, to pull out the old table in pieces, each time killing the table. Is it acceptable behavior to do the CREATE, then do the SELECT, then DROP?
Thanks..
--- EDIT ---
Just as a follow up, I decided to take an even different approach to this.
Branching the strong-oracle package, I was able to do what I originally hoped to do, which was to pull the data directly from the table without doing a conversion.
Here is the issue I've posted. If I am allowed to publish my code to a branch, I'll post a follow up here for completeness.
Oracle ODBC Driver Release 11.2.0.1.0 says that Prefetch for LONG RAW data types is supported, which is true.
One caveat is that LONG RAW can technically be up to 2GB in size. I had to set a hard max size of 10MB in the code, which is adequate for my use, so far at least. This probably could be a variable sent in to the connection.
This fix is a bit off original topic now however, but it might be useful to someone else.
With Oracle GTTs, it is not be necessary to drop and create each time, and you don't need to worry about data "hanging around." In fact, it's inadvisable to drop and re-create. The structure itself persists, but the data in it does not. The data only persists within each session. You can test this by opening up two separate clients, loading data with one, and you will notice it's not there in the second client.
In effect, each time you open a session, it's like you are reading a completely different table, which was just truncated.
If you want to empty the table within your stored procedure, you can always truncate it. Within a stored proc, you will need to execute immediate if you do this.
This is really handy, but it also can make debugging a bear if you are implementing GTTs through code.
Out of curiosity, why a chunk at a time and not the entire dataset? What kind of data volumes are you talking about?
-- EDIT --
Per our comments conversation, this is very raw and untested, but I hope it will give you an idea what I mean:
CREATE OR REPLACE PROCEDURE LOAD_DATA()
AS
TOTAL_ROWS number;
TABLE_ROWS number := 1;
ROWS_AT_A_TIME number := 100;
BEGIN
select count (*)
into TOTAL_ROWS
from oldtable;
WHILE TABLE_ROWS <= TOTAL_ROWS
LOOP
execute immediate 'truncate table MY_TEMP_TABLE';
insert into MY_TEMP_TABLE
SELECT
MYID, TO_LOB(LONGRAWDATA) as BLOBDATA
FROM oldtable
WHERE ROWNUM between TABLE_ROWS and TABLE_ROWS + ROWS_AT_A_TIME;
insert into MY_REMOTE_TABLE#MY_REMOTE_SERVER
select * from MY_TEMP_TABLE;
commit;
TABLE_ROWS := TABLE_ROWS + ROWS_AT_A_TIME;
END LOOP;
commit;
end LOAD_DATA;
Good time of a day to everyone.
I face with a huge problem during my work on previous week.
Here ia the deal:
I need to download exel file (blob) from ORACLE database through SAS.
I am using:
First step i need to get data from oracle. I used the construction (blob file is nearly 100kb):
proc sql;
connect to oracle;
create table SASTBL as
select * from connection to oracle (
select dbms_lob.substr(myblobfield,1,32767) as blob_1,
dbms_lob.substr(myblobfield,32768,32767) as blob_2,
dbms_lob.substr(myblobfield,65535,32767) as blob_3,
dbms_lob.substr(myblobfield,97302,32767) as blob_4
from my_tbl;
);
quit;
And the result is:
blob_1 = 70020202020202...02
blob_2 = 02020202020...02
blob_3 = 02020202...02
I do not understand why the field consists from "02"(the whole file)
And the length of any variable in sas is 1024 (instead of 37767) $HEX2024 format.
If I ll take:
dbms_lob.substr(my_blob_field,2000,900) from the same object the result will mush more similar to the truth:
blob = "A234ABC4536AE7...."
The question is: 1. how can i get binary data from blob field correctly trough SAS? What is my mistake?
Thank you.
EDIT 1:
I get the information but max string is 2000 kb.
Use the DBMAX_TEXT option on the CONNECT statement (or a LIBNAME statement) to get up to 32,767 characters. The default is probably 1024.
PROC SQL uses SQL to interact with SAS datasets (create tables, query tables, aggregate data, connect externally, etc.). The procedure mostly follows the ANSI standard with a few SAS specific extensions. Each RDMS extends ANSI including Oracle with its XML handling such as saving content in a blob column. Possibly, SAS cannot properly read the Oracle-specific (non-ANSI) binary large object type. Typically SAS processes string, numeric, datetime, and few other types.
As an alternative, consider saving XML content from Oracle externally as an .xml file and use SAS's XML engine to read content into SAS dataset:
** STORING XML CONTENT;
libname tempdata xml 'C:\Path\To\XML\File.xml';
** APPEND CONTENT TO SAS DATASET;
data Work.XMLData;
set tempdata.NodeName; /* CHANGE TO REPEAT PARENT NODE OF XML. */
run;
Adding as another answer as I can't comment yet... the issue you experienced is that the return of dbms_lob.substr is actually a varchar so SAS limits it to 2,000. To avoid this, you could wrap it in to_clob( ... ) AND set the DBMAX_TEXT option as previously answered.
Another alternative is below...
The code below is an effective method for retrieving a single record with a large CLOB. Instead of calculating how many fields to split the clob into resulting in a very wide record, it instead splits it into multiple rows. See expected output at bottom.
Disclaimer: Although effective it may not be efficient ie may not scale well to multiple rows, the generally accepted approach then is row pipelining PLSQL. That being said, the below got me out of a pinch if you can't make a procedure...
PROC SQL;
connect to oracle (authdomain=YOUR_Auth path=devdb DBMAX_TEXT=32767 );
create table clob_chunks (compress=yes) as
select *
from connection to Oracle (
SELECT id
, key
, level clob_order
, regexp_substr(clob_value, '.{1,32767}', 1, level, 'n') clob_chunk
FROM (
SELECT id, key, clob_value
FROM schema.table
WHERE id = 123
)
CONNECT BY LEVEL <= regexp_count(clob_value, '.{1,32767}',1,'n')
)
order by id, key, clob_order;
disconnect from oracle;
QUIT;
Expected output:
ID KEY CHUNK CLOB
1 1 1 short_clob
2 2 1 long clob chunk1of3
2 2 2 long clob chunk2of3
2 2 3 long clob chunk3of3
3 3 1 another_short_one
Explanation:
DBMAX_TEXT tells SAS to adjust the default of 1024 for a clob field.
The regex .{1,32767} tells Oracle to match at least once but no more than 32767 times. This splits the input and captures the last chunk which is likely to be under 32767 in length.
The regexp_substr is pulling a chunk from the clob (param1) starting from the start of the clob (param2), skipping to the 'level'th occurance (param3) and treating the clob as one large string (param4 'n').
The connect by re-runs the regex to count the chunks to stop the level incrementing beyond end of the clob.
References:
SAS KB article for DBMAX_TEXT
Oracle docs for REGEXP_COUNT
Oracle docs for REGEXP_SUBSTR
Oracle regex syntax
Stackoverflow example of regex splitting
I have a long raw column in an Oracle table. Insert with select is not working because of the long raw column which is part of my select statement as well. Basically I am trying to insert to insert history row with couple of parameters changed. Hence I was thinking of using PL/SQL in Oracle. I have no experience in PL/SQL neither I got anything after googling for couple of days. Can anyone help me with a sample PL/ SQL for my problem ? Thanks in advance !!!
LONG and LONG RAW datatypes are deprecated, and have been for many years now. You really are much better off getting away from them.
Having said that, if you're using PL/SQL, you will be limited to 32,760 bytes of data, which is the max that the LONG RAW PL/SQL datatype will hold. However, the LONG RAW database datatype, can hold up to 2GB of data. So, if any rows in your table contain data longer than 32,760 bytes, you will not be able to retrieve it using PL/SQL. This is a fundamental limitation of LONG and LONG RAW datatypes, and one of the reasons Oracle has deprecated their use.
In that case, the only options are Pro*C or OCI.
More information can be found here:
http://download.oracle.com/docs/cd/B19306_01/appdev.102/b14261/datatypes.htm#CJAEGDEB
Hope that helps.
You can work with a LONG RAW column directly in PL/SQL if your data is limited to 32kB:
FOR cc IN (SELECT col1, col2... col_raw FROM your_table) LOOP
INSERT INTO your_other_table (col1, col2... col_raw)
VALUES (cc.col1, cc.col2... cc.col_raw);
END LOOP;
This will fail if any LONG RAW is larger than 32k.
In that case you will have to use another language. You could use java since it is included in the DB. I already answered a couple of questions on SO with LONG RAW and java:
Copying data from LOB Column to Long Raw Column (will work with LONG RAW to LONG RAW too, just replace the UPDATE with an INSERT)
Get the LENGTH of a LONG RAW
In any case as you have noticed it is a pain to work with this data type. If converting to LOB is not possible you will have to use a workaround.
I wish to extract just the first 1024 bytes of a stored blob and not the whole file. The reason for this is I want to just extract the metadata from a file as quickly as possible without having to select the whole blob.
I understand the following:
select dbms_lob.substr(file_blob, 16,1)
from file_upload
where file_upload_id=504;
which returns it as hex. How may I do this so it returns it in binary data without selecting the whole blob?
Thanks in advance.
DBMS_LOB.SUBSTR will, for a BLOB, return a RAW. Most environments will render that in hex.
You can use the DUMP function to view it in some other formats.
select dump(dbms_lob.substr(product_image,10,1),10),
dump(dbms_lob.substr(product_image,10,1),16),
dump(dbms_lob.substr(product_image,10,1),17)
from APEX_DEMO.DEMO_PRODUCT_INFO
where product_id = 9;
This returns the first 10 bytes of the BLOB in decimal (eg 0-255), hex and character. The latter may throw some unprintable garbage to the screen and, if the client and database character sets do not match, undergo some 'translation'.
You can use UTL_RAW.CAST_TO_VARCHAR2 which may give you what you want.
select utl_raw.cast_to_varchar2(dbms_lob.substr(product_image,10,1)) chr
from APEX_DEMO.DEMO_PRODUCT_INFO
where product_id = 9