Calling SQL Loader From SQL Plus

Question

I was wondering if there was a way I can execute a SQL Loader script from SQL Plus.

We are using Oracle 10g.

Answer 1

An alternative technique may be to use an external table. There is no need to take your CSV (or whatever) file and load it in a separate step. Simply declare your external table in the correct format (this is almost identical to a SQL*Loader parfile, but wrapped in a CREATE TABLE statement) and you can issue a SELECT directly against it, once the file is in the right place. It will create .BAD and .LOG files, just like SQL*Loader for any records that can't be cast to the datatypes in the table. You could expect better performance too. These days I would consider SQL*Loader to be for legacy apps only.

Answer 2

You should be able to run it via the HOST command:

SQL> host /path/to/ora/bin/sqlldr parfile=...