Specify Target Field Definition for Import

Specify the field definitions for the fields in the imported records:

Attributes are displayed in a grid with four columns (Column Name, Data Type, Data Size/Format, and Null If). This grid allows direct entry of field names, data types, size of the fields, and special characters indicating missing values. If the first record of the file contains field names, the table is populated with names provided in first record.

Follow the directions in Change Data Types to change data types.

Click Next to continue.

Change Data Types

There are two ways to change data types of attributes:

  1. Click the cell that contains the Data Type of the attribute. Select the new data type from the dropdown list. For items of type DATE, see Date Format.
  2. Select one or more rows, and use one following buttons to change data types:

Click Preview to see the first twenty rows of the new table.

NOTE: If you change a value, you must press Enter for the change to take effect.

Date Format

The default format for dates in an Oracle database depends on the NLS_DATE_FORMAT. For the United Kingdom and the United States of America, the default format is DD-MON-YY. You can change the default date format using an ALTER SESSION command. For example, use the following command to change the date format to be a 2-digit month followed by a 2-digit day followed by a 4-digit year:

ALTER SESSION NLS-DATE-FORMAT="MM-DD-YYYY";

After this command executes, "July 4, 2000" will appear as 07-04-2000, instead of the default format 04-JUL-00.

For more information about date formats, see the "Datatypes" chapter in the Oracle Database SQL Reference.