Bug? Ora-3113 after double regexp

Question

During some tests for this tread Pattern matching using Regular expression
I encountered the following strange situation.
SQL*Plus: Release 10.2.0.1.0 - Production on Wed Mar 16 18:39:09 2011
Copyright (c) 1982, 2005, Oracle.  All rights reserved.
Connected to:
Oracle Database 10g Enterprise Edition Release 10.2.0.5.0 - 64bit Production
With the Partitioning, OLAP, Data Mining and Real Application Testing options
SQL> with testdata as (select 'A499BPAU4A32A386KBCZ4C13C41D20E' a, '*CZ4*M11*7NQ
+RDR+RSM-R9A-R9B' b from dual
  2          union all select 'CZ4' a, '*CZ4*M11*7NQ+RDR+RSM-R9A-R9B' b from dual
  3          union all select 'M11' a, '*CZ4*M11*7NQ+RDR+RSM-R9A-R9B' b from dual
  4          union all select '7NbasjnE' a, '*CZ4*M11*7NQ+RDR+RSM-R9A-R9B' b from dual
  5          )
  6      ,t2 as (select a,b, '('||ltrim(replace(regexp_substr(b,'^(*)([^\+-]+)'),'*','|'),'|')||')'
regstr
  7             from testdata)
  8  SELECT  * from t2
  9  where regexp_like(a, '(CZ4|M11|7NQ)')
10  ;
A                               B
REGSTR
A499BPAU4A32A386KBCZ4C13C41D20E *CZ4*M11*7NQ+RDR+RSM-R9A-R9B
(CZ4|M11|7NQ)
CZ4                             *CZ4*M11*7NQ+RDR+RSM-R9A-R9B
(CZ4|M11|7NQ)
M11                             *CZ4*M11*7NQ+RDR+RSM-R9A-R9B
(CZ4|M11|7NQ)
SQL> with testdata as (select 'A499BPAU4A32A386KBCZ4C13C41D20E' a, '*CZ4*M11*7NQ
+RDR+RSM-R9A-R9B' b from dual
  2          union all select 'CZ4' a, '*CZ4*M11*7NQ+RDR+RSM-R9A-R9B' b from dual
  3          union all select 'M11' a, '*CZ4*M11*7NQ+RDR+RSM-R9A-R9B' b from dual
  4          union all select '7NbasjnE' a, '*CZ4*M11*7NQ+RDR+RSM-R9A-R9B' b from dual
  5          )
  6      ,t2 as (select a,b, '('||ltrim(replace(regexp_substr(b,'^(*)([^\+-]+)'),'*','|'),'|')||')'
regstr
  7             from testdata)
  8  SELECT  * from t2
  9  where regexp_like(a, regstr)
10  ;
with testdata as (select 'A499BPAU4A32A386KBCZ4C13C41D20E' a, '*CZ4*M11*7NQ+RDR+RSM-R9A-R9B' b from
ERROR at line 1:
ORA-03113: end-of-file on communication channel
SQL> It seems to me, that If I use a regular expression result as the search string of regexp_like my db connection is killed.
I believe I hit some kind of oracle internal stack overflow or endless loop. Does anyone have an explaination for it? Is this somewhere documented and/or does it work in 11g?

Answer 1

I just tested it on 2 different 10.2.0.5 and one 10.2.0.4 databases in 3 distinct Operating Systems:
Oracle Database 10g Enterprise Edition Release 10.2.0.5.0 - 64bi
PL/SQL Release 10.2.0.5.0 - Production
CORE     10.2.0.5.0     Production
TNS for HPUX: Version 10.2.0.5.0 - Production
NLSRTL Version 10.2.0.5.0 - Production
Oracle Database 10g Enterprise Edition Release 10.2.0.5.0 - 64bi
PL/SQL Release 10.2.0.5.0 - Production
CORE     10.2.0.5.0     Production
TNS for Solaris: Version 10.2.0.5.0 - Production
NLSRTL Version 10.2.0.5.0 - Production
Oracle Database 10g Enterprise Edition Release 10.2.0.4.0 - 64bi
PL/SQL Release 10.2.0.4.0 - Production
CORE     10.2.0.4.0     Production
TNS for Linux: Version 10.2.0.4.0 - Production
NLSRTL Version 10.2.0.4.0 - ProductionAll 3 returned the same exception (here in portuguese language):
SQL> select * from v$version;
BANNER
Oracle Database 10g Enterprise Edition Release 10.2.0.5.0 - 64bi
PL/SQL Release 10.2.0.5.0 - Production
CORE     10.2.0.5.0     Production
TNS for HPUX: Version 10.2.0.5.0 - Production
NLSRTL Version 10.2.0.5.0 - Production
SQL> WITH testdata AS
  2   (SELECT 'A499BPAU4A32A386KBCZ4C13C41D20E' a, '*CZ4*M11*7NQ+RDR+RSM-R9A-R9B' b
  3      FROM dual
  4    UNION ALL
  5    SELECT 'CZ4' a, '*CZ4*M11*7NQ+RDR+RSM-R9A-R9B' b
  6      FROM dual
  7    UNION ALL
  8    SELECT 'M11' a, '*CZ4*M11*7NQ+RDR+RSM-R9A-R9B' b
  9      FROM dual
10    UNION ALL
11    SELECT '7NbasjnE' a, '*CZ4*M11*7NQ+RDR+RSM-R9A-R9B' b FROM dual),
12  t2 AS
13   (SELECT a, b, '(' || ltrim(REPLACE(regexp_substr(b, '^(*)([^\+-]+)'), '*', '|'), '|') || ')' regstr FROM testdata)
14  SELECT * FROM t2 WHERE regexp_like (a, regstr);
WITH testdata AS
(SELECT 'A499BPAU4A32A386KBCZ4C13C41D20E' a, '*CZ4*M11*7NQ+RDR+RSM-R9A-R9B' b
    FROM dual
  UNION ALL
  SELECT 'CZ4' a, '*CZ4*M11*7NQ+RDR+RSM-R9A-R9B' b
    FROM dual
  UNION ALL
  SELECT 'M11' a, '*CZ4*M11*7NQ+RDR+RSM-R9A-R9B' b
    FROM dual
  UNION ALL
  SELECT '7NbasjnE' a, '*CZ4*M11*7NQ+RDR+RSM-R9A-R9B' b FROM dual),
t2 AS
(SELECT a, b, '(' || ltrim(REPLACE(regexp_substr(b, '^(*)([^\+-]+)'), '*', '|'), '|') || ')' regstr FROM testdata)
SELECT * FROM t2 WHERE regexp_like (a, regstr)
ORA-03113: fim de arquivo no canal de comunicaçãoThen finally I found myself one last reminiscent 10.2.0.1 here and voilá... it worked.
SQL> select * from v$version;
BANNER
Oracle Database 10g Enterprise Edition Release 10.2.0.1.0 - 64bi
PL/SQL Release 10.2.0.1.0 - Production
CORE     10.2.0.1.0     Production
TNS for 64-bit Windows: Version 10.2.0.1.0 - Production
NLSRTL Version 10.2.0.1.0 - Production
SQL> WITH testdata AS
  2   (SELECT 'A499BPAU4A32A386KBCZ4C13C41D20E' a, '*CZ4*M11*7NQ+RDR+RSM-R9A-R9B' b
  3      FROM dual
  4    UNION ALL
  5    SELECT 'CZ4' a, '*CZ4*M11*7NQ+RDR+RSM-R9A-R9B' b
  6      FROM dual
  7    UNION ALL
  8    SELECT 'M11' a, '*CZ4*M11*7NQ+RDR+RSM-R9A-R9B' b
  9      FROM dual
10    UNION ALL
11    SELECT '7NbasjnE' a, '*CZ4*M11*7NQ+RDR+RSM-R9A-R9B' b FROM dual),
12  t2 AS
13   (SELECT a, b, '(' || ltrim(REPLACE(regexp_substr(b, '^(*)([^\+-]+)'), '*', '|'), '|') || ')' regstr FROM testdata)
14  SELECT * FROM t2 WHERE regexp_like (a, regstr);
A                               B                            REGSTR
A499BPAU4A32A386KBCZ4C13C41D20E *CZ4*M11*7NQ+RDR+RSM-R9A-R9B (CZ4|M11|7NQ)
CZ4                             *CZ4*M11*7NQ+RDR+RSM-R9A-R9B (CZ4|M11|7NQ)
M11                             *CZ4*M11*7NQ+RDR+RSM-R9A-R9B (CZ4|M11|7NQ)
7NbasjnE                        *CZ4*M11*7NQ+RDR+RSM-R9A-R9B (CZ4|M11|7NQ)Unfortunately I don't have access to the alert logs of any of them, being a wretched developer. The DBA's SLA for that would take a bit to return that, I don't think it would be worth bothering unless no one else can provide us one.