Oracle Database Discussions

We have an unconvential input file. It looks something like the following, with 3 columns

123456 This is a description STATIC
123457 This is a different description DYNAMIC
123457 And even another description BOTH

The problem lies in the fact that spaces separate the columns, as well as exist in the 'description'.

Now, it's easy enough to just pull in the data as one column in an EXTERNAL TABLE, and then run a SUBSTR( ) against the data to pull everything apart, but that means either a VIEW, or some PL/SQL.

Is there anyway to add something like the following into the EXTERNAL TABLE def'n itself?

COL1 = SUBSTR(row, 1, first space)
COL2 = SUBSTR(row, first space + 1, position of last space - position of first space - 1)
COL3 = SUBSTR(row, last space + 1)


I can write this pseudocode as proper SQL, but I don't know how to add it to the table def'n. Alll the examples I've seen so far format incoming date data, like

...
ORGANIZATION EXTERNAL
  (  TYPE ORACLE_LOADER
     DEFAULT DIRECTORY EDS_DATA_DIR
     ACCESS PARAMETERS 
       ( records delimited by newline 
	  nobadfile nologfile nodiscardfile 
	  fields terminated by '|' 
	  missing field values are null 
	  reject rows with all null fields 
	  ( 
		TK, 
		CIT_NO, 
		CONTEST_DT  DATE "YYYY/MM/DD" 
		   NULLIF ( CONTEST_DT = BLANKS ), 
...

but nothing resembles what I need.

Thanks,
--=Chuck