Writing to Text Files in Oracle PL/SQL - How to count the number of lines from the text file (Page 2 of 6 )
In the previous section, you learned how to display all the lines available in a text file. Now, let us see how to count the number of lines in a text file. I modified the program in the previous section to meet the new requirement. The program is as follows:
declare
f utl_file.file_type;
s varchar2(200);
c number := 0;
begin
f := utl_file.fopen('SAMPLEDATA','sample1.txt','R');
loop
utl_file.get_line(f,s);
dbms_output.put_line(s);
c := c + 1;
end loop;
exception
when NO_DATA_FOUND then
utl_file.fclose(f);
dbms_output.put_line('Number of lines: ' || c);
end;
According to the above program, I am defining a simple variable to maintain the count. That variable always gets incremented within the loop, thus maintaining the number of lines read!
You can also observe that I am handling the last part of my program only in the “exception” area. The exception part gets executed only when no lines are available to read. In my upcoming articles, I shall explain how to deal with these types of scenarios very professionally. Till then, I shall continue in this fashion.
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