Changing color of report result in column

Question

I've seen a number of examples in these forums to use a CASE statement to return the result from a select into a CSS mark up structure to change the display attributes of the result depending on a particular condition.
I've not seen a way to make it work when assigning the CASE statement to a plsql VARCHAR2. Any suggestions on how to fix this (I think it's issues with quoting)? The APEX error I get is; +"Query cannot be parsed within the Builder. If you believe your query is syntactically correct, check the ''generic columns'' checkbox below the region source to proceed without parsing. "+
The problem only occurs with the CASE structure in place. If replaced with i.QUANTITY_AVAILABLE (to just get the value), it works just fine.
Here is the code.
declare
   l_query varchar2(4000) := '';
begin
   l_query := '
     select i.INVENTORY_ID,
            io.ORDER_QUANTITY,
            CASE
               WHEN i.QUANTITY_AVAILABLE=0
               THEN ''<span style="color:red;"> ''|| i.QUANTITY_AVAILABLE ||''</span>''
               ELSE i.QUANTITY_AVAILABLE
            END,
            i.QUANTITY_AVAILABLE qty_avail_hold,
            i.STRAIN_CODE,
            i.STRAIN_NAME,
            i.GENOTYPE,
            i.AGE,
            i.SEX,
            (lower(substr(i.ROOM_NUMBER,1,instr(i.ROOM_NUMBER,''-'',1,1)-1))) ROOM_NUMBER
     from   SM_INVENTORY i,
            SM_INVENTORY_ORDER io
     where  io.ORDER_ID (+)= :F111_MODIFYING_ORDER
     and    io.INVENTORY_ID (+)= i.INVENTORY_ID';
return l_query;
end;Many Thanks!
Paul
Edited by: pgtaviator on Nov 3, 2009 10:24 AM
Edited by: pgtaviator on Nov 3, 2009 10:24 AM

Answer 1

Hi,
Try
declare
   l_query varchar2(4000) := '';
begin
   l_query := '
     select i.INVENTORY_ID,
            io.ORDER_QUANTITY,
            CASE
               WHEN i.QUANTITY_AVAILABLE=0
               THEN ''<span style="color:red;"> ''|| i.QUANTITY_AVAILABLE ||''</span>''
               ELSE TO_CHAR(i.QUANTITY_AVAILABLE)
            END,
            i.QUANTITY_AVAILABLE qty_avail_hold,
            i.STRAIN_CODE,
            i.STRAIN_NAME,
            i.GENOTYPE,
            i.AGE,
            i.***,
            (lower(substr(i.ROOM_NUMBER,1,instr(i.ROOM_NUMBER,''-'',1,1)-1))) ROOM_NUMBER
     from   SM_INVENTORY i,
            SM_INVENTORY_ORDER io
     where  io.ORDER_ID (+)= :F111_MODIFYING_ORDER
     and    io.INVENTORY_ID (+)= i.INVENTORY_ID';
return l_query;
end;