Function like decode ??

Question

How write a function similar to decode which takes variables arguments?
My need is I need to get a concatanated string seperated by a separator indepedent of how many arguments I pass in to a function. How can I do that?
Any help/pointers is highly appreciated?

Answer 1

Thank you Richard.
But to you the orignial decode function is written like your delimit function ? (just curious). If you know javascript, that a function can be written in a way that it can many parameter without defining those slots in the function parameters. Is this possible with PL/SQL too? It would be great if it can.
Thank you again Richard, your solution you should be enough for me now.
I'm pretty sure it's impossible to do true variable parameter lists in PL/SQL. However, you can use defaults to create a comparable effect...
create or replace function delimit (
delimiter varchar2,
s1 varchar2,
s2 varchar2 := null,
s3 varchar2 := null,
s4 varchar2 := null,
s5 varchar2 := null,
s6 varchar2 := null)
return varchar2 is
s varchar2(32767) := s1;
begin
if s2 is not null then s := s || delimiter || s2; end if;
if s3 is not null then s := s || delimiter || s3; end if;
if s4 is not null then s := s || delimiter || s4; end if;
if s5 is not null then s := s || delimiter || s5; end if;
if s6 is not null then s := s || delimiter || s6; end if;
return s;
end;
/Now you can call this function with anywhere from 1 to 6 strings...
DELIMIT('','HELLO','WORLD')
Hello World
DELIMIT('','HELLO',NULL,'WORLD')
Hello World
DELIMIT(',','RED','BLUE','YELLOW','ORANGE','GREEN')
red,blue,yellow,orange,green
DELIMIT('->','RED','BLUE','YELLOW','ORANGE','GREEN')
red -> blue -> yellow -> orange -> greenJust add as many arguments as you'd like for the maximum (I think 255 is the limit in PL/SQL). Alternatively, you could pass in a table of strings as one argument and iterate through them.
Richard