Database Adapter Merge with char/varchar primary key

Question

Hi guys,
It seems as though merge statements in BPEL database adapters do not work if the primary key of the table contains a char/varchar. This is in Jdeveloper 10.1.3.4.0
If I create the table below:
create table test_merge (
  id        number primary key,
  text      varchar2(255)
);Then the merge operation will update and insert as expected. However, if I create the same table but with id as a char/varchar, then the merge statement will never update.
It seems like it never finds a record with the same id (if it is a char/varchar), and always attempts to insert, which results in unique key constraint errors for the primary key column.
Has anyone else encountered this issue and found a way to get the merge statement to work correctly? I can obviously perform the select myself, and then conditionally update/insert, but I would prefer the merge to work as expected.
Thanks

Answer 1

After investigating further, it seems that even a database adapter select is not working correctly. Consider the following table:
create table test_merge (
  id        varchar2(255) primary key,
  text      varchar2(255)
);And I have inserted a record with id = "1" and text="abc"
If I create a BPEL process and add a database adapter (with only the select checkbox ticked) with the following SQL:
SELECT ID, TEXT FROM TEST_MERGE WHERE (ID = #id)If I invoke this adapter, passing in "1" as the id, then a record is returned, with the correct text (i.e. "abc") BUT the id returned is "-9900000000000000000000000000"
Can anyone explain why this is happening?