Complex SQL help for a

Question

I do not know if this is the right place for thius type of post. If it is not please advise where the right place is.
I need help generating a report, hopefully with SQL in 8.1.7
SQL Statement which produced the data below the query :
SELECT CHANGE.change_number, CHANGE.route_date as DATE_TO_CCB, nodetable.description AS Approver_required, (TRIM(BOTH ',' FROM CHANGE.PRODUCT_LINES)) AS PRODUCT_LINES /*, PROPERTYTABLE.VALUE as PRODUCT_LINES */
FROM CHANGE, signoff, workflow_process, nodetable /*, PROPERTYTABLE */
WHERE ( (CHANGE.ID = signoff.change_id)
AND (CHANGE.process_id = signoff.process_id)
AND ((nodetable.id = signoff.user_assigned) or (nodetable.id=signoff.user_signed))
AND (CHANGE.process_id = workflow_process.ID)
AND (CHANGE.ID = workflow_process.change_id)
AND (CHANGE.workflow_id = workflow_process.workflow_id)
AND (SIGNOFF.SIGNOFF_STATUS=0 )/* in (0, 2, 3)) */ /* 0=request needs attention, 2=request approved, 3=request rejected */
AND (SIGNOFF.REQUIRED=5 or SIGNOFF.REQUIRED=1) /* 1=Approver 5= Ad Hoc Approver */
AND (CHANGE.IN_REVIEW=1)
AND (CHANGE.RELEASE_DATE IS NULL)
AND (CHANGE.CLASS != '4928')
/* AND (PROPERTYTABLE.PROPERTYID IN (SELECT TRIM(BOTH ',' FROM CHANGE.PRODUCT_LINES) FROM CHANGE)) */
order by change.route_date desc
**** Results **********
CHANGE_NUMBER|DATE_TO_CCB|APPROVER_REQUIRED|PRODUCT_LINES
C02190|11/14/2008 3:34:02 PM|Anurag Upadhyay|270354,270362|
C02190|11/14/2008 3:34:02 PM|Dennis McGuire|270354,270362|
C02190|11/14/2008 3:34:02 PM|Hamid Khazaei|270354,270362|
C02190|11/14/2008 3:34:02 PM|Mandy York|270354,270362|
C02193|11/14/2008 3:05:18 PM|Hamid Khazaei|274279,266339,266340,266341|
C02193|11/14/2008 3:05:18 PM|Rob Brogle|274279,266339,266340,266341|
C02193|11/14/2008 3:05:18 PM|Xavier Otazo|274279,266339,266340,266341|
C02193|11/14/2008 3:05:18 PM|san|274279,266339,266340,266341|
C02194|11/14/2008 2:51:34 PM|Diana Young|271503|
C02194|11/14/2008 2:51:34 PM|Carl Krentz|271503|
C02194|11/14/2008 2:51:34 PM|Dennis Yen|271503|
C02194|11/14/2008 2:51:34 PM|Gordon Ries|271503|
C02194|11/14/2008 2:51:34 PM|Sunil Khatana|271503|
M00532|11/13/2008 1:34:42 PM|Dennis Yen|270356,270354,270360,274279,266339,266340,266341,276780,260784|
M00532|11/13/2008 1:34:42 PM|Jin Hong|270356,270354,270360,274279,266339,266340,266341,276780,260784|
M00532|11/13/2008 1:34:42 PM|Sunil Khatana|270356,270354,270360,274279,266339,266340,266341,276780,260784|
Each value in the numeric comma delimited string has a corresponding ID for the actual test string value in another table as shown below.
PROPERTYID|VALUE
260775|product 1
260776|Product 2
260777|Product x
260778|Product y
260779|Internal
260780|ORCA
260781|Tiger
260782|Orange product
260783|Restricted
260784|Product zz
266259|Product YYY
266260|Hercules
266261|Tangerine
*****Desired output****
CHANGE_NUMBER|DATE_TO_CCB|APPROVER_REQUIRED|PRODUCT_LINES
C02190|Nov/14/2008 03:34:02 PM|Anurag Upadhyay, Dennis McGuire, Hamid Khazaei, Mandy York|Product Y,Product 1
C02193|Nov/14/2008 03:05:18 PM|Hamid Khazaei, Rob Brogle, Xavier Otazo, san|Hercules,Apple,Product 3,Product zz
C02194|Nov/14/2008 02:51:34 PM|Diana Young, Carl Krentz, Dennis Yen, Gordon Ries, Sunil Khatana|Product 2
M00532|Nov/13/2008 01:34:42 PM|Dennis Yen, Jin Hong, Sunil Khatana|Product 1,Product 4,product yy,product YYY,ORCA,Tiger,Orange product,Restricted

Answer 1

Hi,
Here's how you can do it in Oracle 8.1.
To get the individual sub-strings from product_lines, join your current result set to this "counter table"
(   SELECT  ROWNUM  AS n
    FROM    all_objects
    WHERE   ROWNUM <= 10 -- upper bound on number of items
)  cntrIf you don't know the worst case of how many items might be in product_lines, it's a little more complicated:
(   SELECT  ROWNUM  AS n
    FROM    all_objects
    WHERE   ROWNUM <= 1 +
            SELECT  MAX ( LENGTH (product_lines)
                        - LENGTH (REPLACE (product_lines, ','))
            FROM    table_name
)  cntrJoin this to the existing result set like this
WHERE   ...
AND     INSTR ( product_lines || ','    -- one extra comma added
              , 1
              , n
              ) > 0When you do the join, you will have
one copy of all the rows with one item in producgt_lines,
two copies of all the rows with two items in producgt_lines,
three copies of all the rows with three items in producgt_lines,
and so on.
When a row has been copied, each copy will have a different value of cntr.n.
To extract the n-th substring from product_lines:
SELECT  ...
        SUBSTR ( product_lines
               , INSTR ( ',' || product_lines,   ',',   1,   n)
               , ( INSTR (product_lines || ',',   ',',   1,   n)
                 - INSTR (',' || product_lines,   ',',   1,   n)
               )  AS product_lines_itemWhen you have derived this column, you can join to the table with the translations
WHERE  TO_NUMBER (product_lines_item) = propertyidTo combine these rows into one row with a comma-delimited list, GROUP BY all the columns you want to select except the property_value ('produc 1', 'tangerine', etv.), and SELECT:
LTRIM ( MAX (CASE WHEN n =  1 THEN ',' || property_value END) ||
        MAX (CASE WHEN n =  2 THEN ',' || property_value END) ||
        MAX (CASE WHEN n = 10 THEN ',' || property_value END)
      )I don't know a good way to re-combine the rows in Oracle 8 without assuming some limit on the number of items. I assumed there would never be more than 10 in the example above. You can say 20 or 100, I suppose, if you want to. If you guess too high, everything will still work: the query will just be slower.
This is a just one example of why packing several values into a single column is a bad idea.