Adding an End-of-Line Character to a Fixed Text File

If you are writing text in a fixed-text format, separate lines for each record are helpful. An end-of-line character makes the date more legible and clear. If you use delimited format defaults, an end-of-line character is automatic. However, for fixed-format unloads, you need to add an end-of-line character to your records. For example, consider a table with the following schema:

TABLE sample (
   lastname CHAR(10),
   firstname CHAR(10),
   dateofbirth DATE);

This table contains the following values:

Adams      Sam        10-02-1957

Smith      John       01-01-1920

Next, consider an external table with the following schema:

CREATE EXTERNAL TABLE sample_ext (
   lastname CHAR(10) EXTERNAL CHAR(10),
   firstname CHAR(10) EXTERNAL CHAR(10),
   dateofbirth DATE EXTERNAL CHAR(12));

Unloading sample_ext without an end-of-line character produces the following output:

Adams     Sam       10-02-1957  Smith     John      01-01-1920