I've spent the last 45 minutes trying to load a extract file and cannot figure out what the problem is. Here is what I use on the extraction: set linesize 4000 SET PAGESIZE 0 SET FEEDBACK OFF=20 SET TRIMSPOOL ON spool f:\oraback\x.dat select '^|^'||UNIT_ID||'^|^'||OP_YEAR||'^|^'||to_char(OP_DATE,'DD-MM-YYYY')||'^ |^' from x where op_year=3D2003 and rownum < 100 / spool off Here is the control file to load the data: Load DATA INFILE '2003UnitEmissions.dat' APPEND INTO TABLE HOUR_UNIT_TEST FIELDS TERMINATED BY '^|^' TRAILING (UNIT_ID INTEGER EXTERNAL, =20 OP_YEAR INTEGER EXTERNAL, =20 OP_DATE date "DD-MM-YYYY", ) And at the command line: F:\oraback>sqlldr x/x@x control=3Dx.ctl log=3Dx.log In the log file I get : Record 1: Rejected - Error on table x, column OP_DATE. ORA-01861: literal does not match format string Record 2: Rejected - Error on table x, column OP_DATE. ORA-01861: literal does not match format string What in the world am I missing? -- //www.freelists.org/webpage/oracle-l