The use of two of these functions, TO_CHAR and TO_DATE, has already been demonstrated in Chapter 9. TO_CHAR transforms a date into a character string (in the format you request). TO_CHAR can convert not just DATEs but also NUMBERs into character strings. TO_DATE is also a transformation function. It takes either a character string or a number and converts it into the DATE datatype. It then can be used in date arithmetic to calculate MONTHS_BETWEEN, NEXT_DAY, and other date functions. Elementary Conversion Functions Although there are many conversion functions listed in Table 10-1, the most commonly used are three whose purpose is to convert one datatype into another: ■ TO_CHAR transforms a DATE or NUMBER into a character string. ■ TO_DATE transforms a NUMBER, CHAR, or VARCHAR2 into a DATE. ■ TO_NUMBER transforms a CHAR or VARCHAR2 into a NUMBER. Why are these transformations important? TO_DATE is obviously necessary to accomplish date arithmetic. TO_CHAR allows you to manipulate a number as if it were a string, using string functions. TO_NUMBER allows you to use a string that happens to contain only numbers as if it were a number; by using it, you can add, subtract, multiply, divide, and so on. This means that if you stored a nine-digit ZIP code as a number, you could transform it into a string, and then use SUBSTR and concatenation to add a dash (such as when printing addresses on envelopes): select SUBSTR(TO_CHAR(948033515),1,5)||'-'|| SUBSTR(TO_CHAR(948033515),6) AS Zip from DUAL; ZIP 94803-3515 Here, the TO_CHAR function transforms the pure number 948033515 (notice that it has no single quotation marks around it, as a CHAR or VARCHAR2 string must) into a character string. 196 Part II: SQL and SQL*Plus ORACLE Series TIGHT / Oracle9 i : The Complete Reference / Loney, Koch / 222521-1 / Chapter 10 Blind Folio 10:196 Function Name Definition TO_YMINTERVAL Converts a character string of CHAR, VARCHAR2, NCHAR, or NVARCHAR2 datatype to an INTERVAL YEAR TO MONTH type. TRANSLATE TRANSLATEs characters in a string into different characters. UNISTR Converts a string into Unicode in the database Unicode character set. TABLE 10-1. Transformation Functions (continued) P:\010Comp\Oracle8\521-1\CD\Ventura\book.vp Friday, July 19, 2002 4:11:44 PM Color profile: Generic CMYK printer profile Composite Default screen SUBSTR then clips out positions 1 to 5 of this “string,” producing 94803. A dash is concatenated on the right end of this string, and then another TO_CHAR creates another “string,” which another SUBSTR clips out from position 6 to the end. The second string, 3515, is concatenated after the dash. The whole rebuilt string is relabeled Zip, and Oracle displays it: 94803-3515. This TO_CHAR function lets you use string manipulation functions on numbers (and dates) as if they were actually strings. Handy? Yes. But watch this: select SUBSTR(948033515,1,5)||'-'|| SUBSTR(948033515,6) AS Zip from DUAL; ZIP 94803-3515 This shouldn’t work, because 948033515 is a NUMBER, not a character string. Yet the string function SUBSTR clearly worked anyway. Would it work with an actual NUMBER database column? Here’s a table with Zip as a NUMBER: describe ADDRESS Name Null? Type LASTNAME VARCHAR2(25) FIRSTNAME VARCHAR2(25) STREET VARCHAR2(50) CITY VARCHAR2(25) STATE CHAR(2) ZIP NUMBER PHONE VARCHAR2(12) EXT VARCHAR2(5) Select just the ZIP code for all the Marys in the table: select SUBSTR(Zip,1,5)||'-'|| SUBSTR(Zip,6) AS Zip from ADDRESS where FirstName = 'MARY'; ZIP 94941-4302 60126-2460 SUBSTR works here just as well as it does with strings, even though Zip is a NUMBER column from the ADDRESS table. Will other string functions also work? select Zip, RTRIM(Zip,20) from ADDRESS Chapter 10: Conversion and Transformation Functions 197 ORACLE Series TIGHT / Oracle9 i : The Complete Reference / Loney, Koch / 222521-1 / Chapter 10 Blind Folio 10:197 P:\010Comp\Oracle8\521-1\CD\Ventura\book.vp Friday, July 19, 2002 4:11:45 PM Color profile: Generic CMYK printer profile Composite Default screen where FirstName = 'MARY'; ZIP RTRIM(ZIP,20) 949414302 9494143 601262460 60126246 The column on the left demonstrates that Zip is a NUMBER; it is even right-justified, as numbers are by default. But the RTRIM column is left-justified, just as strings are, and it has removed zeros and twos from the right side of the ZIP codes. Something else is peculiar here. Recall from Chapter 7 the format for RTRIM, shown here: RTRIM( string [,' set' ]) The set to be removed from the string is enclosed within single quotation marks, yet in this example, RTRIM(Zip,20) there are no quotation marks. So what is going on? Automatic Conversion of Datatypes Oracle is automatically converting these numbers, both the Zip and the 20, into strings, almost as if they both had TO_CHAR functions in front of them. In fact, with a few clear exceptions, Oracle will automatically transform any datatype into any other datatype, based on the function that is going to affect it. If it’s a string function, Oracle will convert a NUMBER or a DATE instantly into a string, and the string function will work. If it’s a DATE function and the column or literal is a string in the format DD-MON-YY, Oracle will convert it into a DATE. If the function is arithmetic and the column or literal is a character string, Oracle will convert it into a NUMBER and do the calculation. Will this always work? No. To have Oracle automatically convert one datatype into another, the first datatype must already “look” like the datatype it is being converted to. The basic guidelines are as follows: ■ Any NUMBER or DATE can be converted to a character string. Any string function can be used on a NUMBER or DATE column. Literal NUMBERs do not have to be enclosed in single quotation marks when used in a string function; literal DATEs do. ■ A CHAR or VARCHAR2 value will be converted to a NUMBER if it contains only NUMBERs, a decimal point, or a minus sign on the left. ■ A CHAR or VARCHAR2 value will be converted to a DATE only if it is in the default date format (usually DD-MON-YY). This is true for all functions except GREATEST and LEAST, which will treat the value as a string, and is true for BETWEEN only if the column to the left after the word BETWEEN is a DATE. Otherwise, TO_DATE must be used, with proper format. 198 Part II: SQL and SQL*Plus ORACLE Series TIGHT / Oracle9 i : The Complete Reference / Loney, Koch / 222521-1 / Chapter 10 Blind Folio 10:198 P:\010Comp\Oracle8\521-1\CD\Ventura\book.vp Friday, July 19, 2002 4:11:45 PM Color profile: Generic CMYK printer profile Composite Default screen These guidelines may be confusing, so favor the use of TO_DATE and other conversion functions to make sure the values are treated properly. The following examples should help to clarify the guidelines. The following are the effects of several randomly chosen string functions on NUMBERs and DATEs: select INITCAP(LOWER(SysDate)) from DUAL; INITCAP(LOWER(SYSDATE)) 26-Mar-02 Note that the INITCAP function put the first letter of “mar” into uppercase even though “mar” was buried in the middle of the string “26-mar-02.” This is a feature of INITCAP that is not confined to dates, although it is illustrated here for the first time. It works because the following works: select INITCAP('this-is_a.test,of:punctuation;for+initcap') from DUAL; INITCAP('THIS-IS_A.TEST,OF:PUNCTUATION;FO This-Is_A.Test,Of:Punctuation;For+Initcap INITCAP puts the first letter of every word into uppercase. It determines the beginning of a word based on its being preceded by any character other than a letter. You can also cut and paste dates using string functions, just as if they were strings: select SUBSTR(SysDate,4,3) from DUAL; SUB MAR Here, a DATE is left-padded with 9s for a total length of 20: select LPAD(SysDate,20,'9') from DUAL; LPAD(SYSDATE,20,'9') 9999999999926-MAR-02 LPAD, or any other string function, also can be used on NUMBERs, whether literal (as shown here) or as a column: select LPAD(9,20,0) from DUAL; LPAD(9,20,0) 00000000000000000009 Chapter 10: Conversion and Transformation Functions 199 ORACLE Series TIGHT / Oracle9 i : The Complete Reference / Loney, Koch / 222521-1 / Chapter 10 Blind Folio 10:199 P:\010Comp\Oracle8\521-1\CD\Ventura\book.vp Friday, July 19, 2002 4:11:45 PM Color profile: Generic CMYK printer profile Composite Default screen These examples show how string functions treat both NUMBERs and DATEs as if they were character strings. The result of the function (what you see displayed) is itself a character string. In this next example, a string (note the single quotation marks) is treated as a NUMBER by the number function FLOOR: select FLOOR('-323.78') from DUAL; FLOOR('-323.78') -324 Here, two literal character strings are converted to DATEs for the DATE function MONTHS_BETWEEN. This works only because the literal strings are in the default date format DD-MON-YY: select MONTHS_BETWEEN('16-MAY-02','01-NOV-02') from DUAL; MONTHS_BETWEEN('16-MAY-02','01-NOV-02') -5.516129 One of the guidelines says that a DATE will not be converted to a NUMBER. Yet, here is an example of addition and subtraction with a DATE. Does this violate the guideline? select SysDate, SysDate + 1, SysDate - 1 from DUAL; SYSDATE SYSDATE+1 SYSDATE-1 26-MAR-02 27-MAR-02 25-MAR-02 It does not, because the addition and subtraction is date arithmetic, not regular arithmetic. Date arithmetic (covered in Chapter 9) works only with addition and subtraction, and only with DATEs. Most functions will automatically convert a character string in default date format into a DATE. An exception is this attempt at date addition with a literal: select '26-MAR-02' + 1 from DUAL; ERROR: ORA-01722: invalid number Date arithmetic, even with actual DATE datatypes, works only with addition and subtraction. Any other arithmetic function attempted with a date will fail. Dates are not converted to numbers, as this attempt to divide a date by 2 illustrates: select SysDate / 2 from DUAL; * ERROR at line 1: ORA-00932: inconsistent data types Finally, a NUMBER will never be automatically converted to a DATE, because a pure number cannot be in the default format for a DATE, which is DD-MON-YY: 200 Part II: SQL and SQL*Plus ORACLE Series TIGHT / Oracle9 i : The Complete Reference / Loney, Koch / 222521-1 / Chapter 10 Blind Folio 10:200 P:\010Comp\Oracle8\521-1\CD\Ventura\book.vp Friday, July 19, 2002 4:11:46 PM Color profile: Generic CMYK printer profile Composite Default screen select NEXT_DAY(032602,'FRIDAY') from DUAL; * ERROR at line 1: ORA-00932: inconsistent data types To use a NUMBER in a date function, TO_DATE is required. A Warning About Automatic Conversion The issue of whether it is a good practice to allow SQL to do automatic conversion of datatypes has arguments on either side. On one hand, this practice considerably simplifies and reduces the functions necessary to make a select statement work. On the other hand, if your assumption about what will be in the column is wrong (for example, you assume a particular character column will always have a number in it, meaning you can use it in a calculation), then, at some point, a query will stop working, Oracle will produce an error, and time will have to be spent trying to find the problem. Further, another person reading your select statement may be confused by what appear to be inappropriate functions at work on characters or numbers. Using TO_NUMBER makes it clear that a numeric value is always expected even if the column uses the VARCHAR2 datatype. A simple rule of thumb might be that it is best to use functions where the risk is low, such as string manipulation functions on numbers, rather than arithmetic functions on strings. For your benefit and that of others using your work, always put a note near the select statement signaling the use of automatic type conversion. Specialized Conversion Functions As shown in Table 10-1, Oracle includes several specialized conversion functions. If you expect to use SQLPLUS and Oracle simply to produce reports, you probably won’t ever need any of these functions. On the other hand, if you plan to use SQLPLUS to update the database, expect to build Oracle applications; or if you are using National Language Support, this information will eventually prove valuable. The functions can be found, by name, in the Alphabetical Reference section of this book. NOTE The CAST function is used with nested tables and varying arrays; see Chapter 31 for details. The DECODE function is covered in Chapter 17. The conversion functions generally take a single value as input and return a single converted value as output. For example, the BIN_TO_NUM function converts binary values to decimal numeric values. Its input value is a list of the digits of a binary value, separated by commas and treated as a single input string: select BIN_TO_NUM(1,1,0,1) from DUAL; BIN_TO_NUM(1,1,0,1) 13 Chapter 10: Conversion and Transformation Functions 201 ORACLE Series TIGHT / Oracle9 i : The Complete Reference / Loney, Koch / 222521-1 / Chapter 10 Blind Folio 10:201 P:\010Comp\Oracle8\521-1\CD\Ventura\book.vp Friday, July 19, 2002 4:11:46 PM Color profile: Generic CMYK printer profile Composite Default screen 202 Part II: SQL and SQL*Plus ORACLE Series TIGHT / Oracle9 i : The Complete Reference / Loney, Koch / 222521-1 / Chapter 10 Blind Folio 10:202 select BIN_TO_NUM(1,1,1,0) from DUAL; BIN_TO_NUM(1,1,1,0) 14 Transformation Functions Although in one sense any function that changes its object could be called a transformation function, there are two unusual functions that you can use in many interesting ways to control your output based on your input, instead of simply transforming it. These functions are TRANSLATE and DECODE. TRANSLATE TRANSLATE is a simple function that does an orderly character-by-character substitution in a string. This is the format for TRANSLATE: TRANSLATE( string , if , then ) TRANSLATE looks at each character in string , and then checks if to see whether that character is there. If it is, it notes the position in if where it found the character, and then looks at the same position in then . TRANSLATE substitutes whichever character it finds there for the character in string . Normally, the function is written on a single line, like this: select TRANSLATE(7671234,234567890,'BCDEFGHIJ') from DUAL; TRANSLA GFG1BCD But it might be easier to understand if simply broken onto two lines (SQLPLUS doesn’t care, of course): select TRANSLATE(7671234,234567890, 'BCDEFGHIJ') from DUAL; TRANSLA GFG1BCD When TRANSLATE sees a 7 in the string , it looks for a 7 in the if , and translates it to the character in the same position in the then (an uppercase G ). If the character is not in the if , it is not translated (observe what TRANSLATE did with the 1). TRANSLATE is technically a string function, but, as you can see, it will do automatic data conversion and work with a mix of strings and numbers. The following is an example of a very simple code cipher, where every letter in the alphabet is shifted one position. Many years ago, spies used such character-substitution methods to encode messages before sending them. The recipient simply reversed the process. Do you remember the smooth-talking computer, HAL, in P:\010Comp\Oracle8\521-1\CD\Ventura\book.vp Friday, July 19, 2002 4:11:47 PM Color profile: Generic CMYK printer profile Composite Default screen Chapter 10: Conversion and Transformation Functions 203 ORACLE Series TIGHT / Oracle9 i : The Complete Reference / Loney, Koch / 222521-1 / Chapter 10 Blind Folio 10:203 the movie 2001: A Space Odyssey ?IfyouTRANSLATE HAL’s name with a one-character shift in the alphabet, you get this: select TRANSLATE('HAL','ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ', 'BCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZA') AS Who from DUAL; WHO IBM DECODE If TRANSLATE is a character-by-character substitution, DECODE can be considered a value-by-value substitution. For every value it sees in a field, DECODE checks for a match in a series of if / then tests. DECODE is an incredibly powerful function, with a broad range of areas where it can be useful. Chapter 17 is devoted entirely to advanced use of DECODE. This is the format for DECODE: DECODE( value , if1 , then1 , if2 , then2 , if3 , then3 , . . . , else ) Only three if / then combinations are illustrated here, but there is no practical limit. To see how this function works, recall the NEWSPAPER table you saw in earlier chapters: select * from NEWSPAPER; FEATURE S PAGE - National News A 1 Sports D 1 Editorials A 12 Business E 1 Weather C 2 Television B 7 Births F 7 Classified F 8 Modern Life B 1 Comics C 4 Movies B 4 Bridge B 2 Obituaries F 6 Doctor Is In F 6 Suppose you want to change the name of a couple of the regular features. DECODE will check each Feature value , row by row . If the value it finds is ‘Sports’, then it will substitute ‘Games People Play’; if it finds ‘Movies’, then it will substitute ‘Entertainment’; if it finds anything else in the value, then it will use the value of Feature. In the next example, the page number is decoded. If the page number is 1, then the words ‘Front Page’ are substituted. If the page number is anything else, the words ‘Turn to’ are P:\010Comp\Oracle8\521-1\CD\Ventura\book.vp Friday, July 19, 2002 4:11:47 PM Color profile: Generic CMYK printer profile Composite Default screen concatenated with the page number. This illustrates that else can be a function, a literal, or another column. select Feature, Section, DECODE(Page,'1','Front Page','Turn to '||Page) from NEWSPAPER; FEATURE S DECODE(PAGE,'1','FRONTPAGE','TURNTO'||PAGE) - National News A Front Page Sports D Front Page Editorials A Turn to 12 Business E Front Page Weather C Turn to 2 Television B Turn to 7 Births F Turn to 7 Classified F Turn to 8 Modern Life B Front Page Comics C Turn to 4 Movies B Turn to 4 Bridge B Turn to 2 Obituaries F Turn to 6 Doctor Is In F Turn to 6 There are some restrictions on datatypes in the list of if s and then s, which will be covered in Chapter 17. Review Most functions in Oracle, although they are intended for a specific datatype, such as CHAR, VARCHAR2, NUMBER, and DATE, will actually work with other datatypes as well. They do this by performing an automatic type conversion. With a few logical exceptions, and the hope of future compatibility, they will do this as long as the data to be converted “looks” like the datatype required by the function. Character functions will convert any NUMBER or DATE. NUMBER functions will convert a CHAR or VARCHAR2 if it contains the digits 0 through 9, a decimal point, or a minus sign on the left. NUMBER functions will not convert DATEs. DATE functions will convert character strings if they are in the format DD-MON-YY. They will not convert NUMBERs. Two functions, TRANSLATE and DECODE, will fundamentally change the data they act on. TRANSLATE will do a character substitution according to any pattern you specify, and DECODE will do a value substitution for any pattern you specify. 204 Part II: SQL and SQL*Plus ORACLE Series TIGHT / Oracle9 i : The Complete Reference / Loney, Koch / 222521-1 / Chapter 10 Blind Folio 10:204 P:\010Comp\Oracle8\521-1\CD\Ventura\book.vp Friday, July 19, 2002 4:11:47 PM Color profile: Generic CMYK printer profile Composite Default screen ORACLE Series TIGHT / Oracle9 i : The Complete Reference / Loney, Koch / 222521-1 / Chapter 11 Blind Folio 11:205 CHAPTER 11 Grouping Things Together P:\010Comp\Oracle8\521-1\CD\Ventura\book.vp Friday, July 19, 2002 4:11:48 PM Color profile: Generic CMYK printer profile Composite Default screen [...]... CATEGORY table is joined to the BOOKSHELF table, and the result of that join is joined to the BOOKSHELF_CHECKOUT table The distinct clause tells Oracle to return only the distinct combinations of ParentCategory and SubCategory NOTE Not every table is joined to every other table In fact, the number of links between the tables is usually one less than the number of tables being joined Once the tables are... BOOKSHELF_AUTHOR table with a count of Titles greater than one If the answer for a given name is yes, the EXISTS test is true, and the outer query selects an AuthorName and Title The author names are correlated by the “BA” alias given to the first BOOKSHELF_AUTHOR table select AuthorName, Title from BOOKSHELF_AUTHOR BA where EXISTS (select * from BOOKSHELF_AUTHOR BA2 where BA.AuthorName = BA2.AuthorName group... the name of the column the tables have in common—do not qualify the column name with a table name or table alias P:\010Comp\Oracle8\521-1\CD\Ventura\book.vp Friday, July 19, 2002 4:11:56 PM 227 ORACLE Color profile: Generic CMYK printer profile Composite Default screen 228 Series TIGHT / Oracle9i: The Complete Reference / Loney, Koch / 222521-1 / Chapter 12 Blind Folio 12:228 Part II: SQL and SQL* Plus... 11:212 Part II: SQL and SQL* Plus “Counter” is referred to as a column alias—another name to use when referring to a column In the description of the view, and in the query, there is no evidence of the grouping function performed—just the Counter column name It is as if the view CATEGORY_COUNT was a real table with rows of monthly sums Why? Oracle automatically takes a single word, without quotes, and uses... 12:224 Part II: SQL and SQL* Plus How many authors have written more than one book on the bookshelf? select from group having AuthorName, COUNT(*) BOOKSHELF_AUTHOR by AuthorName COUNT(*) > 1; AUTHORNAME COUNT(*) -DAVID MCCULLOUGH 2 DIETRICH BONHOEFFER 2 E B WHITE 2 SOREN KIERKEGAARD 2 STEPHEN JAY GOULD 2 W P KINSELLA 2 WILTON BARNHARDT 2 Attempting to find both AuthorName and Title... Let’s take the last example and modify the order by clause: order by TitleCounter desc, Title, AuthorName The titles and authors will now be ordered based on the number of authors (with the greatest number first), then by Title and AuthorName: TITLE -JOURNALS OF LEWIS AND CLARK JOURNALS OF LEWIS AND CLARK JOURNALS OF LEWIS AND CLARK JOURNALS OF LEWIS AND CLARK COMPLETE POEMS OF JOHN... one table is joined with every row in the other table A small 80-row table joined to a small 100-row table in this way would produce 8,000 rows in your display, and few of them would be at all meaningful Review Tables in Oracle can be grouped into collections of related rows, such as by Title, AuthorName, or CategoryName This is done using the group by clause, which collects only those rows in the table. .. BOOKSHELF_CHECKOUT bc where BC .Name = 'FRED FULLER'))) and AuthorName not in (select AuthorName from BOOKSHELF_AUTHOR ba, BOOKSHELF_CHECKOUT bc where ba.Title = bc.Title and bc .Name = 'FRED FULLER'); AUTHORNAME BERNARD DE VOTO BERYL MARKHAM DANIEL BOORSTIN DIETRICH BONHOEFFER G B TALBOT JOHN ALLEN PAULOS MERIWETHER LEWIS STEPHEN AMBROSE STEPHEN JAY GOULD WILLIAM CLARK This and is a part of the main... kind of subtotal table For example, consider this group query: select CategoryName, COUNT(*) from BOOKSHELF group by CategoryName; You can create a view based on this query, and you can then query the view: create select from group or replace view CATEGORY_COUNT as CategoryName, COUNT(*) AS Counter BOOKSHELF by CategoryName; desc CATEGORY_COUNT Name Null? -CATEGORYNAME COUNTER Type... a query like this: select CategoryName, COUNT(*) from BOOKSHELF group by CategoryName; and Oracle would respond with: CATEGORYNAME COUNT(*) -ADULTFIC 6 ADULTNF 10 ADULTREF 6 CHILDRENFIC 5 CHILDRENNF 1 CHILDRENPIC 3 Notice the mix of a column name, CategoryName, and the group function COUNT in the select clause This mix is possible only because CategoryName is referenced in the group by . datatype to an INTERVAL YEAR TO MONTH type. TRANSLATE TRANSLATEs characters in a string into different characters. UNISTR Converts a string into Unicode in the database Unicode character set. TABLE 10-1. Transformation. expect to use SQLPLUS and Oracle simply to produce reports, you probably won’t ever need any of these functions. On the other hand, if you plan to use SQLPLUS to update the database, expect to build. C Turn to 2 Television B Turn to 7 Births F Turn to 7 Classified F Turn to 8 Modern Life B Front Page Comics C Turn to 4 Movies B Turn to 4 Bridge B Turn to 2 Obituaries F Turn to 6 Doctor Is