I have a delimited text file which has certain text fields containing strings with date and time information. Instead of the standard 'YYYY-MM-DD HH24:MI:SS' format, these strings are in UTC (Coordinated Universal Time) format -- 'YYYY-MM-DDTHH24:MI:SS' -- the only difference being the inclusion of 'T' as a separator. For example, one such value appears in the text file as
'2005-12-07T14:25:50'

My objective is to import this text file into an Oracle table via a control file. The appropriate fields in the table have been defined as being type Date. The control file instructs the program to read the aforementioned strings as date fields. However, I cannot seem to find the correct format that accounts for the 'T' separator. I've tried a few different ones, including 'YYYY-MM-DDTHH24:MI:SS', but none has worked.

I suppose as a last resort I could read in these specific fields as text fields, then execute a function which would strip out the 'T' separator. But I'm wondering if anyone out there knows of a simpler solution.