Hi Nigel, Thanks forthe fix. but, still that did not work for me. after including this also, i am gettingthe same error, when the code tries to write the output to the file. shall i use directory instead of utl_file_dir ? (i dont this these are different rather than bounce of a database is required for utl_file_dir to take effect) Raj Nigel Thomas <nigel@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote: Raj >>When my programme tries to write to a file using the utl_file.putf () >>it is writing only 15000 records only. and after that it is erroring out. Check this Ask Tom thread http://asktom.oracle.com/pls/ask/f?p=4950:8:::::F4950_P8_DISPLAYID:88212348059 You may need to supply a value for the max line length > default in the FOPEN call: UTL_FILE.FOPEN ( location IN VARCHAR2, filename IN VARCHAR2, open_mode IN VARCHAR2, max_linesize IN BINARY_INTEGER) RETURN file_type; max_linesize = Maximum number of characters per line, including the newline character, for this file. (minimum value 1, maximum value 32767). The default is approximately 1000 bytes. (Tom says 1022...) Cheers Nigel -- //www.freelists.org/webpage/oracle-l __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com