Skip to Main Content
  • Questions

  • Directing a select query output to a text file

Breadcrumb

Question and Answer

Chris Saxon

Thanks for the question, Granger.

Asked: March 02, 2016 - 9:58 am UTC

Last updated: March 02, 2016 - 3:51 pm UTC

Version: Latest

Viewed 10K+ times! This question is

You Asked

select * from table;


This is my query in SQL Plus.
I need the exact output of this query into a text file.
I tried SPOOL Command but it prints entire screen in the text file.
Please help me with this.

and Chris said...

You may find this easier with SQL Developer/SQLcl. These come with formatting comments controlling how they display output. e.g.:

select /*csv*/ from ...
select /*xml*/ from ...


For more info, see:

http://www.thatjeffsmith.com/archive/2012/05/formatting-query-results-to-csv-in-oracle-sql-developer/
http://www.thatjeffsmith.com/archive/2015/12/more-set-sqlformat-fun-in-sqlcl/

Is this answer out of date? If it is, please let us know via a Comment
more

Connor and Chris don't just spend all day on AskTOM. You can also catch regular content via Connor's blog and Chris's blog. Or if video is more your thing, check out Connor's channel and Chris's channel from their Youtube channels. And of course, keep up to date with AskTOM via the official twitter account.