Creating Table from Multiple Colon Separated Values

Question

I have a DB table with a field that stores values that may be colon separated as resulting from a checkbox page item.
1:2
3:4
5:6
My ultimate goal is to turn those values into a table of singular values.
1
2
3
4
5
6
I've gotten close, but can't figure out how to finish the last step. My first step was to create a single query that concatenated all values into one long string. I am able to get
1:2:3:4:5:6
as a result of using the LISTAGG function in the query. My next step was to use a function, STRTAB, that I sourced from this forum to convert the colon delimited string into a result set using the query:
select * from table( strtab( '1:2:3:4:5:6' ))
where the string was derived from the LISTAGG query. The query works when I pass the above string, but if I try to insert the actual LISTAGG query it fails with missing expression. My actual query looks like this:
select * from table( strtab(
select listagg( RESTRICTED, ':' ) WITHIN GROUP ( order by RESTRICTED ) as ID
from SZ_LINKED_PROFILES
where RESTRICTED is not null
and PROFILE in ( select ID
from SZ_PROFILES
where ACCOUNT = :APP_ACCOUNT )))
Anyone know how I can complete the last step? I know I can do this with pl/sql, but I need this to be a single query as I'm using it as the criteria in an IN expression of a larger query.
Thanks in advance for your help!
-Jeff

Answer 1

Hi
This should be a lot quicker than using piplelined functions (or any PL/SQL for that matter)...
CREATE TABLE str2tbl
AS SELECT '1:2' str
   FROM dual
   UNION ALL
   SELECT '3:4'
   FROM dual
   UNION ALL
   SELECT '5:6'
   FROM dual;
WITH t_str AS
SELECT  str||':'                                     AS str,
         (LENGTH(str) - LENGTH(REPLACE(str,':'))) + 1 AS no_of_elements
FROM    str2tbl
),   t_n_rows AS
SELECT  LEVEL AS i
FROM    dual
CONNECT BY LEVEL <= (SELECT SUM(no_of_elements) FROM t_str)
SELECT RTRIM(str,':')                               AS original_string,
       SUBSTR(str,start_pos,(next_pos - start_pos)) AS single_element,
       element_no
FROM   (
        SELECT t_str.str,
               nt.i AS element_no,
               INSTR(t_str.str,':',DECODE(nt.i,1,0,1),
                                   DECODE(nt.i,1,1,nt.i - 1)) + 1 AS start_pos,
               INSTR(t_str.str,':',1,DECODE(nt.i,1,1,nt.i))       AS next_pos
        FROM   t_str JOIN t_n_rows nt
                       ON nt.i <= t_str.no_of_elements
ORDER BY 1, 3;
Table created.
ORIG SINGLE_ELEME ELEMENT_NO
1:2  1                     1
1:2  2                     2
3:4  3                     1
3:4  4                     2
5:6  5                     1
5:6  6                     2
6 rows selected.?
Cheers
Ben