PLS-00201: identifier UTIL_FILE must be declared

Question

I'm trying to export data from a query into a csv file from Oracle Enterprise Express installed on a Windows Server 2008 machine.

I've found this solution:

http://asktom.oracle.com/pls/asktom/f?p=100:11:::::P11_QUESTION_ID:235814350980

which basically writes a function and uses the UTIL_FILE object to create and write to a file and add delimiters.

I receive the follow error when I try and create the function in Oracle SQL Developer:

PLS-00201: identifier UTIL_FILE must be declared. 

When I run the following command:

select owner, object_type from all_objects where object_name = 'UTL_FILE' 

The result is:

OWNER      Object Type
---------  -----------
PUBLIC     SYNONYM

EDIT:

Running:

GRANT EXECUTE ON UTL_FILE TO PUBLIC

Gives:

Error starting at line 2 in command:
GRANT EXECUTE ON UTL_FILE TO PUBLIC
Error report:
SQL Error: ORA-00942: table or view does not exist
00942. 00000 -  "table or view does not exist"
*Cause:    
*Action:

What is the problem?

Answer 1

Seems like lack of privileges to me. Often PUBLIC user has EXECUTE privilege granted on that package, but the privilege may be revoked.

You can check if PUBLIC has that privilege by issuing the following query:

SELECT * FROM all_tab_privs WHERE grantee = 'PUBLIC' AND table_name = 'UTL_FILE';

If there are no rows returned, try granting the execute privilege to either the user you are logged as, or to PUBLIC, as some privileged user, for example SYS:

GRANT EXECUTE ON SYS.utl_file TO user_name;

Edit

You must grant the privilege while being logged as, for example, SYS user.

Answer 2

Users do not have execute permission on UTL_FILE by default. To use UTL_FILE, an ADMIN user or instance administrator must explicitly GRANT EXECUTE permission on it, such as in the following example:

GRANT EXECUTE ON SYS.UTL_FILE TO scott;