Oracle 11g R2 – How to Export Rows of Multiple Tables Linked by Column Value

When I run into issues like this, I like to simplify the command as much as possible. I would try putting all of the parameters directly in the command line and removing the parameters that are not required. And I would use a dba user to do it. Something like this.

expdp {dbausername}/{dbapassword} SCHEMAS=OFDAT DUMPFILE=dev_ofdat_2-1-3-0_afterbackfill.dmp

You could do that in Oracle 11gR2 with expdp and the REMAP_DATA option.

1. Create a function in a package that takes a blob as argument, and returns null (or an empty blob perhaps).

2. Call expdp as usual, adding:

   REMAP_DATA=SCHEMA.TAB.BLOB_COLUM:SCHEMA.PACKAGE.YOUR_FUNCTION
   

Short example (schema: mat):

create or replace 
package remap as 
  function null_lob(col blob) return blob;
end remap;
/

create or replace
package body remap as
  function null_lob(col blob)
    return blob is
    eblob blob;
  begin
    return null;
  end null_lob;
end remap;
/

create table foo(a number, b blob);
-- insert a line with a 10M blob, commit

select a, length(b) from foo;

     A  LENGTH(B)
---------- ----------
     1   10485760

Plain export:

$ expdp mat/*** DIRECTORY=EXP_DIR TABLES=MAT.FOO 
...
Total estimation using BLOCKS method: 11.06 MB
...
. . exported "MAT"."FOO"                                 10.00 MB       1 rows
...

Dump file is ~11M.

With the data remap:

$ expdp mat/*** DIRECTORY=EXP_DIR TABLES=MAT.FOO \
                REMAP_DATA=MAT.FOO.B:MAT.remap.null_lob
...
Total estimation using BLOCKS method: 11.06 MB
...
. . exported "MAT"."FOO"                                 5.398 KB       1 rows
...

Dump file is ~100k, importing that dump does indeed import a null in the column.

Another option would be to use an external table to do the load/unload, with the ORACLE_DATAPUMP driver (I think this was introduced in 10g, see external table concepts).

For the unload, use something like:

create table foo_unload
  organization external (
    type oracle_datapump
    default directory exp_dir
    location ('foo.dmp')
  )
as select a, empty_blob() b from foo;

(You can drop the external table right after creating it, that doesn't - by default anyway - delete the dump file.)

Then move the foo.dmp file to your target server & directory, and create the external table there:

create table foo_load (a number, b blob)
  organization external
    type oracle_datapump
    default directory exp_dir
    location ('foo.dmp')
  );

And finally load your target table (CTAS or truncate ...; insert /*+ append */ ... for instance):

create table foo as select * from foo_load;

Drop the external loader table once that's done.