SQL Loader Failing to load more than 255 characters.

This was one of my observations.

We had a sample dataload file defined as :

,mesg_type CHAR "ltrim(rtrim(:mesg_type))"
,mesg_priority CHAR "ltrim(rtrim(:mesg_priority))"
,mesg_description CHAR "ltrim(rtrim(:mesg_description))"


The program was failing to load the data when the length of the field is more than 254 characters.

Issue:
NOTE: The default data type in SQL*Loader is CHAR(255). To load character fields longer than 255 characters, code the type and length in your control file. By doing this, Oracle will allocate a big enough buffer to hold the entire column, thus eliminating potential "Field in data file exceeds maximum length" errors. Example:

Fix:
,mesg_description CHAR(4000) "ltrim(rtrim(:mesg_description))"