Hi Julian,
How to use external table with fixed position
i have done " with fields terminated by ',' " OPTION
can u geme an example?
***
this is my record in FLAT FILE:
-----------------------------------
AU216-JUL-02
AU215-JUL-02
AU715-JUL-02
PE115-JUL-02
***


this is my code. rectify this code.

drop table test_external;

CREATE TABLE test_external (
id VARCHAR2(2),
id_desc NUMBER(1),
id_date VARCHAR2(9))
ORGANIZATION EXTERNAL
(
TYPE ORACLE_LOADER
DEFAULT DIRECTORY ext_dir
ACCESS PARAMETERS
(
records delimited by newline
-- badfile ext_dir:'test_external.bad'
-- logfile ext_dir:'test_external.log'
-- fields terminated by ','
-- missing field values are null
records fixed 12 fields
(
id position(1:2),
id_desc position(3:3),
id_date position(4:9)
)
)
LOCATION ('test_external.dat')
)
PARALLEL 4
REJECT LIMIT UNLIMITED;
***********
when i issue this command " select * from test_external;" iam getting this error.

SQL> select * from test_external;
select * from test_external
*
ERROR at line 1:
ORA-29913: error in executing ODCIEXTTABLEOPEN callout
ORA-29400: data cartridge error
KUP-00554: error encountered while parsing input commands
KUP-01005: syntax error: found "minussign": expecting one of: "badfile,
characterset, data, delimited, discardfile, exit, fields, fixed, load, logfile,
nodiscardfile, nobadfile, nologfile, processing, string, skip, variable"
KUP-01007: at line 2 column 1
ORA-06512: at "SYS.ORACLE_LOADER", line 14
ORA-06512: at line 1