Importing a CSV Text File into Oracle 10G XE

Introduction

In an earlier article, importing data in a spreadsheet into Oracle 10G XE was described. The present article looks at importing a Comma Separated Value (CSV) file, used commonly in exporting MS Excel files, into an Oracle 10G XE table. CSV files are very popular and frequently used data transformation formats since legacy data are usually of this type. In recent times XML formatted data has replaced them. 

However, there is a whole lot of legacy data that needs to be loaded on to more recent databases. Hence, every database vendor provides a program to accomplish this conversion. Also programs exist which takes a CSV file and convert it into an XML file. Perhaps this is another route one can take in data conversions for legacy data.

The CSV file used in this tutorial

In order to load a CSV file to a table in Oracle 10G XE, a CSV file will be created from an Access database table in this tutorial. This will not only simplify the process of understanding the procedure, but also gives us an opportunity to correctly implement the conversion, since the original data, with a good design, is available at the outset. The table we will be using to create a CSV file is the Employees table in the Northwind.mdb, an MS Access database whose design view is as shown.