title: loading huge XLS data into Oracle using python
body: <p>I have a 3+ million record XLS file which i need to dump in Oracle 12C DB (direct dump) using a python 2.7.</p>
  
  <p>I am using Cx_Oracle python package to establish connectivity to Oracle , but reading and dumping the XLS (using openpyxl pckg) is extremely slow and performance degrades for thousands/million records.</p>
  
  <p>From a scripting stand point used two ways-</p>
  
  <ol>
  <li><p>I've tried bulk load , by reading all the values in array and then dumping it using cursor prepare (with bind variables) and cursor fetchmany.This doesn't work well with huge data.</p></li>
  <li><p>Iterative loading of the data as it is being fetched.Even this way has performance issues.</p></li>
  </ol>
  
  <p>What options and techniques/packages can i deploy as a best practise to load this volume of data from XLS to Oracle DB ?Is it advisable to load this volume of data via scripting or should i necessarily use an ETL tool ?
  As of now i only have option via python scripting so please do answer the former</p>