Inserting Data into an Oracle Table - r

Question

I am very new to R, so please forgive any obvious or naive errors. I need to insert multiple rows of data from R into an Oracle database table.
Make the data frame (I have made the RJDBC connection earlier in the script):
df <- data.frame("field_1" = 1:2, "field_2" = c("f","k"), "field_3"= c("j","t"))
This code runs without error, but inserts only the first row into the table:
insert <- sprintf("insert into temp_r_test_u_suck values (%s')",
apply(df, 1, function(i) gsub(" ", "", paste("'", i, collapse="',"), fixed = TRUE)))
dbSendUpdate(con, insert)
This code runs:
insert <- sprintf("into temp_r_test_u_suck values (%s')",
apply(df, 1, function(i) gsub(" ", "", paste("'", i, collapse="',"), fixed = TRUE)))
insert_all <- c("insert all", insert, "select * from dual")
dbSendUpdate(con, insert_all)
But gives me this error:
Error in .local(conn, statement, ...) :
execute JDBC update query failed in dbSendUpdate (ORA-00905: missing keyword
Both of the queries work on their own in Oracle. WHAT am I doing wrong?
Thank you!

Answer 1

Multiple SQL statements are not supported in dbGetQuery, dbSendQuery, dbSendUpdate calls. You need to iterate through them for each statement. Hence, why only the first statement processes. To resolve, extend the anonymous function inside apply to call dbSendUpdate:
apply(df, 1, function(i) {
# BUILD SQL STATEMENT
insert <- sprintf("insert into temp_r_test_u_suck values (%s')",
paste0("'", i, collapse="',"))
# RUN QUERY
dbSendUpdate(con, insert)
})
However, RJDBC extends the DBI standard by supporting parameterization with dbSendUpdate as mentioned in rForge docs for bulk-inserts with no need for iteratively concatenating strings.
dbSendUpdate(conn, statement, ...) This function is analogous to
dbSendQuery, but works with DBML statements and thus doesn't return a
result set. It is more efficient than dbSendQuery. In addition, as of
RJDBC 0.2-9 it supports vectors in prepared statements which allows
bulk-inserts.
# ALL CHARACTER DATAFRAME
df <- data.frame(field_1=as.character(1:2), field_2=c("f","k"), field_3=c("j","t"),
stringsAsFactors=FALSE)
# PREPARED STATEMENT
sql <- "insert into temp_r_test_u_suck values (?, ?, ?)"
# RUN QUERY
dbSendUpdate(con, sql, df$field_1, df$field_2, df$field_3)