FOR LOOP LIMITATION

Question

Hi again..
I´d like to know if any of you know why the code below returns this error:
ORA-01426: numeric overflow.
It seems that the FOR-LOOP variable which in this case is represented by I doesn´t hold as much data as a NUMBER variable. How much data does this internal variable hold?
DECLARE
  NUM1 NUMBER := 59171108702;
  NUM2 NUMBER := 59171108702;
BEGIN
  FOR I IN NUM1 .. NUM2 LOOP
    DBMS_OUTPUT.PUT_LINE ('NUM: ' || I);
  END LOOP;
EXCEPTION
  WHEN OTHERS THEN
    DBMS_OUTPUT.PUT_LINE (SQLERRM);
END;Ohh, I´d also like to know how I can post code here.
Chears,
Bruno
Edited by: brunosdiniz on 20/01/2009 03:33

Answer 1

The following shows with the limit of the PLS_INTEGER...
SQL> ed
Wrote file afiedt.buf
  1  DECLARE
  2    NUM1 NUMBER := 2147483647; --59171108702;
  3    NUM2 NUMBER := 2147483647; --59171108702;
  4  BEGIN
  5   FOR I IN NUM1 .. NUM2 LOOP
  6     DBMS_OUTPUT.PUT_LINE ('NUM: ' || I);
  7   END LOOP;
  8* END;
SQL> /
NUM: 2147483647
PL/SQL procedure successfully completed.
SQL> ed
Wrote file afiedt.buf
  1  DECLARE
  2    NUM1 NUMBER := 2147483648; --59171108702;
  3    NUM2 NUMBER := 2147483648; --59171108702;
  4  BEGIN
  5   FOR I IN NUM1 .. NUM2 LOOP
  6     DBMS_OUTPUT.PUT_LINE ('NUM: ' || I);
  7   END LOOP;
  8* END;
SQL> /
DECLARE
ERROR at line 1:
ORA-01426: numeric overflow
ORA-06512: at line 5
SQL>The latter example being 1 too much for PLS_INTEGER.