Displaying a row vertically

Question

Hi, i require help.
i have to do a report. i have about 7 different date columns, that i need to display as one column. and the other column that i need to display is a date description column, that uses the 7 column heading.
eg tables
start date | end date | due date
05 - jan -07 29-feb-07 01- mar-07
eg. needs to display in report like this:
date | date description
05 - jan-07 start date
29 - feb -07 end date
01 - mar- 07 due date

Answer 1

The following generic function may be used to twirl a list of columns within a table with an optional where.
CREATE TYPE TWIRLED_O AS OBJECT ( ID NUMBER, ATTRIBUTE_NAME VARCHAR2(30), THE_VALUE VARCHAR2(4000));
CREATE TYPE TWIRLED_MS AS TABLE OF TWIRLED_O
CREATE TYPE COLUMN_LIST AS TABLE OF VARCHAR2(30)
CREATE OR REPLACE FUNCTION thaitw(
   p_table                    IN       VARCHAR2
  ,p_column_list              IN       column_list
  ,p_the_where                IN       VARCHAR2 DEFAULT ' 1=1 '
   RETURN twirled_ms PIPELINED
AS
   v_stop_key   NUMBER;
BEGIN
   EXECUTE IMMEDIATE    'SELECT COUNT(*) FROM '
                     || p_table
                     || ' WHERE '
                     || p_the_where
                INTO v_stop_key;
FOR I IN
  WITH twirled AS
       (SELECT half_ample.SEQUENCE ID
              ,EXTRACTVALUE(DBMS_XMLGEN.getxmltype(   'SELECT '
                                                   || column_name
                                                   || ','''
                                                   || column_name
                                                   || ''' LABEL FROM '||p_table||' WHERE '||p_the_where), '/ROWSET/ROW['
                             || half_ample.SEQUENCE
                             || ']/'
                             || column_name) the_data
              ,column_name the_header
          FROM (SELECT column_name
                  FROM dba_tab_columns
                 WHERE table_name = p_table
                   AND owner = SYS_CONTEXT('USERENV','CURRENT_USER')
                   AND column_name MEMBER OF p_column_list ) cols
              ,(SELECT ROWNUM SEQUENCE
                      FROM DUAL
                CONNECT BY LEVEL <= v_stop_key) half_ample)
  SELECT   ID
          ,the_header
          ,the_data
      FROM twirled
  ORDER BY ID
          ,the_header ) LOOP
    PIPE ROW ( TWIRLED_O(I.ID, I.THE_HEADER, I.THE_DATA ) );
END LOOP;
END;     
/Yielding results as follows:
SQL> desc pivot_me
Name                          Null?    Type
ORDERED_DATE                           DATE
DUE_DATE                               DATE
DELIVERED_DATE                         DATE
ID                                     NUMBER
SQL> select * from pivot_me;
ORDERED_DAT DUE_DATE    DELIVERED_D         ID
01-DEC-2007 24-DEC-2007 20-DEC-2007          1
09-DEC-2007 24-DEC-2007 03-JAN-2008          2
03-DEC-2007 15-DEC-2007 23-DEC-2007          3
SQL> select * from table ( thaitw('PIVOT_ME',COLUMN_LIST('ORDERED_DATE','DUE_DATE','DELIVERED_DATE')));
        ID ATTRIBUTE_NAME                 THE_VALUE
         1 DELIVERED_DATE                 20-DEC-2007
         1 DUE_DATE                       24-DEC-2007
         1 ORDERED_DATE                   01-DEC-2007
         2 DELIVERED_DATE                 03-JAN-2008
         2 DUE_DATE                       24-DEC-2007
         2 ORDERED_DATE                   09-DEC-2007
         3 DELIVERED_DATE                 23-DEC-2007
         3 DUE_DATE                       15-DEC-2007
         3 ORDERED_DATE                   03-DEC-2007
..