How to query a CLOB column in Oracle

This works

select DBMS_LOB.substr(myColumn, 3000) from myTable

When getting the substring of a CLOB column and using a query tool that has size/buffer restrictions sometimes you would need to set the BUFFER to a larger size. For example while using SQL Plus use the SET BUFFER 10000 to set it to 10000 as the default is 4000.

Running the DBMS_LOB.substr command you can also specify the amount of characters you want to return and the offset from which. So using DBMS_LOB.substr(column, 3000) might restrict it to a small enough amount for the buffer.

See oracle documentation for more info on the substr command

    DBMS_LOB.SUBSTR (
       lob_loc     IN    CLOB   CHARACTER SET ANY_CS,
       amount      IN    INTEGER := 32767,
       offset      IN    INTEGER := 1)
      RETURN VARCHAR2 CHARACTER SET lob_loc%CHARSET;