How do I spool to a CSV formatted file using SQLPLUS?

Question

I want to extract some queries to a CSV output format. Unfortunately, I can't use any fancy SQL client or any language to do it. I must use SQLPLUS.

How do I do it?

Answer 1

You can explicitly format the query to produce a delimited string with something along the lines of:

select '"'||foo||'","'||bar||'"'
  from tab

And set up the output options as appropriate. As an option, the COLSEP variable on SQLPlus will let you produce delimited files without having to explicitly generate a string with the fields concatenated together. However, you will have to put quotes around strings on any columns that might contain embedded comma characters.

Answer 2

It's crude, but:

set pagesize 0 linesize 500 trimspool on feedback off echo off

select '"' || empno || '","' || ename || '","' || deptno || '"' as text
from emp

spool emp.csv
/
spool off

Answer 3

You could also use the following, although it does introduce spaces between fields.

set colsep ,     -- separate columns with a comma
set pagesize 0   -- only one header row
set trimspool on -- remove trailing blanks
set headsep off  -- this may or may not be useful...depends on your headings.
set linesize X   -- X should be the sum of the column widths

spool myfile.csv

select table_name, tablespace_name 
  from all_tables
 where owner = 'SYS'
   and tablespace_name is not null;

Output will be like:

    TABLE_PRIVILEGE_MAP           ,SYSTEM                        
    SYSTEM_PRIVILEGE_MAP          ,SYSTEM                        
    STMT_AUDIT_OPTION_MAP         ,SYSTEM                        
    DUAL                          ,SYSTEM 
...

This would be a lot less tedious than typing out all of the fields and concatenating them with the commas. You could follow up with a simple sed script to remove whitespace that appears before a comma, if you wanted.

Something like this might work...(my sed skills are very rusty, so this will likely need work)

sed 's/\s+,/,/' myfile.csv

Answer 4

See here for some other ideas...

http://asktom.oracle.com/tkyte/flat/index.html

Answer 5

I have a similar problem...

I need to spool CSV file from SQLPLUS, but the output has 250 columns.

What i did to avoid anoying SQLPLUS output formating:

set linesize 9999
set pagesize 50000
spool myfile.csv
select x
from
(
select col1||';'||col2||';'||col3||';'||col4||';'||col5||';'||col6||';'||col7||';'||col8||';'||col9||';'||col10||';'||col11||';'||col12||';'||col13||';'||col14||';'||col15||';'||col16||';'||col17||';'||col18||';'||col19||';'||col20||';'||col21||';'||col22||';'||col23||';'||col24||';'||col25||';'||col26||';'||col27||';'||col28||';'||col29||';'||col30 as x
from (  
      ...  here is the "core" select
     )
);
spool off

the problem is you will loose column header names...

you can add this:

set heading off
spool myfile.csv
select col1_name||';'||col2_name||';'||col3_name||';'||col4_name||';'||col5_name||';'||col6_name||';'||col7_name||';'||col8_name||';'||col9_name||';'||col10_name||';'||col11_name||';'||col12_name||';'||col13_name||';'||col14_name||';'||col15_name||';'||col16_name||';'||col17_name||';'||col18_name||';'||col19_name||';'||col20_name||';'||col21_name||';'||col22_name||';'||col23_name||';'||col24_name||';'||col25_name||';'||col26_name||';'||col27_name||';'||col28_name||';'||col29_name||';'||col30_name from dual;

select x
from
(
select col1||';'||col2||';'||col3||';'||col4||';'||col5||';'||col6||';'||col7||';'||col8||';'||col9||';'||col10||';'||col11||';'||col12||';'||col13||';'||col14||';'||col15||';'||col16||';'||col17||';'||col18||';'||col19||';'||col20||';'||col21||';'||col22||';'||col23||';'||col24||';'||col25||';'||col26||';'||col27||';'||col28||';'||col29||';'||col30 as x
from (  
      ...  here is the "core" select
     )
);
spool off

I know it`s kinda hardcore, but it works for me...

Answer 6

prefer to use "set colsep" in sqlplus prompt instead of editing col name one by one. Use sed to edit the output file.

set colsep '","'     -- separate columns with a comma
sed 's/^/"/;s/$/"/;s/\s *"/"/g;s/"\s */"/g' $outfile > $outfile.csv

Answer 7

prefer to use "set colsep" in sqlplus prompt instead of editing col name one by one. Use sed to edit the output file.

set colsep '","' -- separate columns with a comma sed 's/^/"/;s/$/"/;s/\s *"/"/g;s/"\s */"/g' $outfile > $outfile.csv