Creating Tables on Oracle using using VB.NET & Oracle Data Access Client

Question

I am trying to create empty tables on Oracle as a part of initial setup for one of the internal tools. Before, I had a SQL script that had the create statements separated using semi-colon and was executing them without checking for existence as follows:

Setup.sql:

CREATE TABLE ex.employees (
  empID     NUMBER,
  firstName VARCHAR(255),
  lastName  VARCHAR(255),
  deptID    NUMBER
)
COMPRESS
NOLOGGING;

CREATE TABLE ex.departments (
  deptID   NUMBER,
  deptDesc VARCHAR(255)
)
COMPRESS
NOLOGGING;

Code Block that parses the file:

Imports Oracle.DataAccess.Client
Imports Oracle.DataAccess.Types

asQueries = ReadFile("Setup.sql").ToString.Split(";")
For Each sQuery In asQueries
  If sQuery.Trim <> "" Then
    command.CommandText = sQuery.Trim
    command.CommandType = CommandType.Text
    command.Connection = conn
    command.ExecuteNonQuery()
  End If
Next

This code worked fine but I wanted to add logic so that I could check the existence of the table & if it already exists, dropt it before I recreate it. So I made the following changes:

setup.sql:

DECLARE
  v_sQuery VARCHAR2(1000);
  v_iTableCount INTEGER;
BEGIN
  SELECT COUNT(1)
    INTO v_iTableCount
    FROM all_tables 
   WHERE UPPER(owner) = 'EX' 
     AND UPPER(table_name) = 'EMPLOYEES';

  IF v_iTableCount > 0 THEN
    v_sQuery := 'DROP TABLE EX.EMPLOYEES';
    EXECUTE IMMEDIATE v_sQuery;
  END IF;

  v_sQuery := ' CREATE TABLE ex.employees (
                  empID     NUMBER,
                  firstName VARCHAR(255),
                  lastName  VARCHAR(255),
                  deptID    NUMBER
                )
                COMPRESS
                NOLOGGING';                
  EXECUTE IMMEDIATE v_sQuery;
END;

#

DECLARE
  v_sQuery VARCHAR2(1000);
  v_iTableCount INTEGER;
BEGIN
  SELECT COUNT(1)
    INTO v_iTableCount
    FROM all_tables 
   WHERE UPPER(owner) = 'EX' 
     AND UPPER(table_name) = 'DEPARTMENTS';

  IF v_iTableCount > 0 THEN
    v_sQuery := 'DROP TABLE EX.DEPARTMENTS';
    EXECUTE IMMEDIATE v_sQuery;
  END IF;

  v_sQuery := ' CREATE TABLE ex.departments (
                  deptID   NUMBER,
                  deptDesc VARCHAR(255)
                )
                COMPRESS
                NOLOGGING';                
  EXECUTE IMMEDIATE v_sQuery;
END;

Code block that parses Setup.sql:

Imports Oracle.DataAccess.Client
Imports Oracle.DataAccess.Types

/*Separating using # because ; is used within the queries now*/
asQueries = ReadFile("Setup.sql").ToString.Split("#")
For Each sQuery In asQueries
  If sQuery.Trim <> "" Then
    command.CommandText = sQuery.Trim
    command.CommandType = CommandType.Text
    command.Connection = conn
    command.ExecuteNonQuery()
  End If
Next

However, now I am receiving the following Exception:

ORA-06550: line 1, column 8:
PLS-00103: Encountered the symbol "" when expecting one of the following:

   begin function package pragma procedure subtype type use
   <an identifier> <a double-quoted delimited-identifier> form
   current cursor
The symbol "" was ignored.
ORA-06550: line 2, column 27:
PLS-00103: Encountered the symbol "" when expecting one of the following:

   begin function package pragma procedure subtype type use
   <an identifier> <a double-quoted delimited-identifier> form
   current cursor

The weird thing is that if I run the query directly in PL/SQL developer, it runs fine. I was wondering if it was because of the quotation marks that holds the query string but that should have affected the earlier version of Setup.sql as well. Is it a weirdness in Oracle Data Access Client or am I making a rookie mistake somewhere that I can't see?

Thanks

UPDATE:

I tried the suggestions regarding replacing carriage return & line feed with just carriage returns from this post but that did not help either.

I tried using vbCrLf and vbLf thinking maybe that would be better but that did not help as well. Considering the following quote from the post, I am not surprised:

While I haven't been able to find any definitive documentation, empirical testing shows that Oracle will accept a CR as line break but not necessarily a CR/LF pair.

However, I am hoping someone here is going to have an answer.

SOLUTION:

Spaces & Tabs were most likely the issue because I changed the code to following and the issue went away. Thought I would update the post so that if anyone who has similar issues in the future can try these things in their cases & hopefully arrive at the solution quicker.

Imports Oracle.DataAccess.Client
Imports Oracle.DataAccess.Types

Dim asQueries As Array
Dim sQuery As String
Dim rgxObj As RegularExpressions.Regex

/*Separating using # because ; is used within the queries now*/
asQueries = ReadFile("Setup.sql").ToString.Split("#")

For Each sQuery In asQueries

  If sQuery.Trim <> "" Then
    sQuery = sQuery.Trim.Replace(vbCrLf, " ").Replace(Chr(9), " ")
    rgxObj = New RegularExpressions.Regex("\s+")
    sQuery = rgxObj.Replace(sQuery, " ").Replace(Chr(9), " ")

    command.CommandText = sQuery
    command.CommandType = CommandType.Text
    command.Connection = conn
    command.ExecuteNonQuery()
  End If
Next