title: What is the max value you can set ERRORS to for Oracle SQL*loader?
body: <p>Straight forward question ..</p>
  
  <p>The documentation for Oracle 10 states:</p>
  
  <p><a href="https://docs.oracle.com/cd/B19306_01/server.102/b14215/ldr_params.htm" rel="nofollow noreferrer">Oracle 10g sql*loader documentation</a></p>
  
  <p>(Note, I linked to 10g since it was most convenient, I'll take an answer for Oracle 10 and/or Oracle 11, either way is fine - I suspect it'll be the same answer though - so I added both tags).</p>
  
  <blockquote>
    <p>ERRORS (errors to allow)
    Default: To see the default value for this parameter, invoke SQL<em>Loader without any parameters, as described in Invoking SQL</em>Loader.</p>
    
    <p>ERRORS specifies the maximum number of insert errors to allow. If the number of errors exceeds the value specified for ERRORS, then SQL*Loader terminates the load. To permit no errors at all, set ERRORS=0. To specify that all errors be allowed, <strong>use a very high number.</strong></p>
  </blockquote>
  
  <p>(Emphasis mine).</p>
  
  <p>So, since Oracle handles up to NUMBER(38) .. I tried:</p>
  
  <pre><code>ERRORS=999999999999999999999999999999999999
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>(36 digits)</p>
  
  <p>and promptly got this error:</p>
  
  <blockquote>
    <p>SQL*Loader-100: Syntax error on command-line</p>
  </blockquote>
  
  <p>Trying a much smaller number:</p>
  
  <pre><code>ERRORS=999999
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>works fine.</p>
  
  <p>So what's the maximum value you can use here ?
  I don't find it in the documentation, so not sure if I'm looking in the wrong place, or it's just not in there :)</p>
  
  <p>And yeah, I need a LARGE number, I'm loading a multi-million row file, so I'd like to use the largest possible to avoid any future issues.</p>