Load text files as clob to database

Question

Having problem loading text files into database as clob.

• Oracle version: Oracle Database 11g EE Release 11.2.0.2.0
• NLS_LANG: RUSSIAN_RUSSIA.CL8MSWIN1251
• NLS_CHARACTERSET: AL32UTF8

code to load text files:

DECLARE
L_BFILE BFILE;
L_CLOB  CLOB;
file_name VARCHAR2(300);

BEGIN
   file_name := 'test.txt';
   L_BFILE := BFILENAME('DIR', file_name);
   if (dbms_lob.fileexists(l_bfile) = 1) then
      INSERT INTO TEST T
      VALUES (SEQ_TEST.NEXTVAL, EMPTY_CLOB(),file_name) return r_data into l_clob;
      L_BFILE := BFILENAME('DIR', file_name);
      DBMS_LOB.FILEOPEN(L_BFILE, DBMS_LOB.FILE_READONLY);
      DBMS_LOB.LOADFROMFILE(L_CLOB, L_BFILE, DBMS_LOB.GETLENGTH(L_BFILE));
      DBMS_LOB.FILECLOSE(L_BFILE);
      COMMIT;
   end if;   
END;

Text files are UTF8. After loading into database, I run select and get squares instead of russian characters. Please help!

Solution

Try LOADCLOBFROMFILE instead of LOADFROMFILE.

From the manual:

Note: If the character set is varying width, UTF-8 for example, the LOB value is stored in the fixed-width UCS2 format. Therefore, if you are using DBMS_LOB.LOADFROMFILE, the data in the BFILE should be in the UCS2 character set instead of the UTF-8 character set. However, you should use sql*loader instead of LOADFROMFILE to load data into a CLOB or NCLOB because sql*loader provides the necessary character set conversions.