Practice - Using External Tables P a g e |1

Practice

Using External Tables

Practice Target
In this practice, you will create external tables with ORACLE_LOADER and ORACLE_DATAPUMP access
drivers.

Practice Overview
In this practice, you will perform the following tasks:
• Create an external table with ORACLE_LOADER access driver.

• Create an external table with ORACLE_DATAPUMP access driver.

Assumptions
• This practice assumes that srv1 is up and running from the CDB snapshot.

• This practice assumes that winsrv is up and running.

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A. Create an External Table with ORACLE_LOADER Access Driver

In this section of the practice, you will generate CSV file from PDB1 in srv1, transfer it to winsrv, then
create an external table in the database in winsrv linked to the CSV file.

1. Start Putty to srv1 as oracle, then in the staging folder, create a subdirectory named as 'ext'.
mkdir /media/sf_staging/ext

2. Start SQL Developer and login to PDB1 as SOE.

3. Submit the following query to retrieve list of the records to be saved in an external file. It returns
100 order records.
SELECT ORDER_ID, TO_CHAR(ORDER_DATE,'DD-MM-RRRR HH24:MI:SS') ORDER_DATE, CUSTOMER_ID,
ORDER_STATUS, DELIVERY_TYPE, ORDER_TOTAL
FROM ORDERS FETCH FIRST 100 ROWS ONLY;

4. Export the output of the query into a CSV file named as 'extorders.csv' without headers. Save
the CSV file in the ext sub-directory.

5. Copy the CSV file to the shared folder configured in winsrv

6. In winsrv, login to the VirtualBox window as oracle.

7. Verify that the CSV file is seen in the mapped Z drive.

8. Copy the CSV file from the Z drive to D:\temp

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9. In winsrv, open a command line window, login to orawindb as SYS and create a directory object
that points to D:\temp in the shared folder. Grant access on the directory to HR.
sqlplus sys/ABcd##1234@orawindb as sysdba
CREATE OR REPLACE DIRECTORY EXTDIR AS 'D:\temp';
GRANT READ, WRITE ON DIRECTORY EXTDIR TO HR;

10. Login to the database as HR and create an external table linked to the CSV file.
The file is a text file, so we have only the option to use ORACLE_LOADER access driver.
conn hr/ABcd##1234

CREATE TABLE ext_orders

(ORDER_ID NUMBER(12),
ORDER_DATE DATE,
CUSTOMER_ID NUMBER(12),
ORDER_STATUS NUMBER(2),
DELIVERY_TYPE VARCHAR2(15),
ORDER_TOTAL NUMBER(8,2)
)
ORGANIZATION EXTERNAL
( TYPE ORACLE_LOADER
DEFAULT DIRECTORY extdir
ACCESS PARAMETERS
( RECORDS DELIMITED BY NEWLINE
BADFILE EXTDIR:'extorders.bad'
LOGFILE EXTDIR:'extorders.log'
FIELDS TERMINATED BY ',' OPTIONALLY ENCLOSED BY '"'
MISSING FIELD VALUES ARE NULL
( ORDER_ID,
ORDER_DATE DATE MASK 'DD-MM-YYYY HH24:MI:SS',
CUSTOMER_ID,
ORDER_STATUS,
DELIVERY_TYPE,
ORDER_TOTAL
)
)
LOCATION ('extorders.csv')
)
REJECT LIMIT UNLIMITED;

11. Retrieve the external table attributes from the data dictionary view USER_EXTERNAL_TABLES.
SELECT TYPE_NAME, ACCESS_TYPE FROM USER_EXTERNAL_TABLES WHERE TABLE_NAME='EXT_ORDERS';

12. Display the structure of the external table.

It has the same structure as the structure defined in the CREATE TABLE statement.
DESC EXT_ORDERS

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13. Retrieve data from the external file.

Observe that the date column is displayed in the session NLS_DATE_FORMAT setting, not in the
format saved in the external file. This proves that Oracle database engine recognized the
datatype of the column as a DATE data type. Furthermore, this means we can apply the
Date/Time functions on the DATE columns in the external tables.
SELECT * FROM ext_orders;

14. Check out the files created in the ext sub-directory

Observe that the SQL_LOADER driver considers all the columns (except ORDER_DATE) as of data
type CHAR(255). The database internally performs the conversion from this data type to the data
type of the column as defined in the table definition.

15. Open the CSV file and make a corrupted data in one of its records.

16. Query the external table. It should return 99 records.

SELECT * FROM ext_orders;

17. Check out the files generated in the ext directory.

You should see a bad file generated containing the rejected row. The file contains the rejected
row but it does not tell why it was rejected. Having a look at the log file helps on detecting the
root cause.

Clean up
18. Drop the external table.
DROP TABLE EXT_ORDERS ;

19. Delete the files (not the directories) in the ext directory and D:\temp

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B. Create an External Table with ORACLE_DATAPUMP Access Driver

In this section of the practice, you will create an external table in srv1 to unload a query results
into a dump file. Then, you will move the dump file and link it to an external table in winsrv.

20. In srv1, invoke SQL*Plus and login to the database as SYS. Then create a directory object that is
linked to the ext sub-directory and grant access on it to SOE.
sqlplus / as sysdba
ALTER SESSION SET CONTAINER=PDB1;
CREATE DIRECTORY EXTDIR AS '/media/sf_staging/ext';
GRANT READ, WRITE ON DIRECTORY EXTDIR TO SOE;

21. As SOE, run the following statement to unload the query below into the ext_orders table using
ORACLE_DATAPUMP driver.
Observe that we do not need to define the column datatypes. They are automatically defined by
the database from the query.
conn SOE/ABcd##1234@pdb1

CREATE TABLE ext_orders

(ORDER_ID ,
ORDER_DATE ,
CUSTOMER_ID ,
ORDER_STATUS ,
DELIVERY_TYPE ,
ORDER_TOTAL
)
ORGANIZATION EXTERNAL
(
TYPE ORACLE_DATAPUMP
DEFAULT DIRECTORY extdir
LOCATION ('orders.dmp')
)
AS
SELECT ORDER_ID, ORDER_DATE, CUSTOMER_ID, ORDER_STATUS, DELIVERY_TYPE, ORDER_TOTAL
FROM ORDERS FETCH FIRST 100 ROWS ONLY;

22. Check out the content of the ext directory.

You should see a dump file and a log file.
host ls -al /media/sf_staging/ext

23. Check out the contents of the log file to verify no issue was raised when unloading the dump file.
host cat /media/sf_staging/ext/EXT_ORDERS_***.log

24. Display the structure of EXT_ORDERS.

desc EXT_ORDERS

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25. Query the EXT_ORDERS table.

The query retrieves its data from the dump file. It does not run the query (used to unload the
dump file) anymore.
set linesize 150
SELECT ORDER_ID, TO_CHAR(ORDER_DATE,'DD-MON-YY') ORDER_DATE, CUSTOMER_ID, ORDER_STATUS,
DELIVERY_TYPE, ORDER_TOTAL
FROM EXT_ORDERS ;

26. Try deleting or updating the EXT_ORDERS.

Once an external table is created, then no data may be added, updated or deleted from the
external table.
DELETE EXT_ORDERS;

27. Copy the generated dump file to the shared folder configured in winsrv.

28. In winsrv, copy the dump file from z drive to D:\temp

29. In winsrv, login to orawindb as HR and create an external table linked to dump file.
Observe in the statement that we need to define the column data types. This means, having the
dump file alone is not enough to be able to load it to an external table. We need to know the
table structure specifications as well.
conn hr/ABcd##1234@orawindb

CREATE TABLE ext_orders

( ORDER_ID NUMBER(12),
ORDER_DATE TIMESTAMP(6) WITH LOCAL TIME ZONE,
CUSTOMER_ID NUMBER(12),
ORDER_STATUS NUMBER(2),
DELIVERY_TYPE VARCHAR2(15),
ORDER_TOTAL NUMBER(8,2)
)
ORGANIZATION EXTERNAL
( TYPE ORACLE_DATAPUMP
DEFAULT DIRECTORY extdir
LOCATION ('orders.dmp')
)
/

30. Query the external table.

SELECT ORDER_ID, TO_CHAR(ORDER_DATE,'DD-MON-YY') ORDER_DATE, CUSTOMER_ID, ORDER_STATUS,
DELIVERY_TYPE, ORDER_TOTAL
FROM EXT_ORDERS ;

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Clean up
31. Drop the external tables.
conn SOE/ABcd##1234@pdb1
DROP TABLE EXT_ORDERS;

conn hr/ABcd##1234@orawindb
DROP TABLE EXT_ORDERS;

32. Drop the directory objects.

conn sys/ABcd##1234@pdb1 as sysdba
DROP DIRECTORY EXTDIR;

conn sys/ABcd##1234@orawindb as sysdba

DROP DIRECTORY EXTDIR;

33. Exit from SQL Developer

34. In winsrv, delete the files in D:\temp

35. In the hosting PC, delete the subdirectory ext created in the sharing folder.

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 Practice - Using External Tables P a g e |8

Summary
• External tables using ORACLE_LOADER access driver are used to link text data files to external
tables. Those external tables can be used in SQL and PL/SQL as the ordinary internal database
tables. However, external tables with ORACLE_LOADER access driver cannot be used to unload
database objects into external files.

• External tables using ORACLE_DATAPUMP access driver are used to upload data into binary dump
files. Those files can then be moved to other Oracle databases and link it to external tables using
the same access driver.

Oracle Database Administration from Zero to Hero, a course by Ahmed Baraka