Format a string values from database

Question

how to retrive the string in the following manner from a table whose coulmn value contains 150 length string data
1. Each line must be no more than 70 characters long.
2. If the 70-character limit comes in the middle of a word, the line breaks before that word.
3. If a word is longer than 70 characters, the line will be be broken mid-word at multiples of 70 characters.
thanks in advance

Answer 1

Hi,
I think a user-defined PL/SQL function or procedure would be the best way to solve this.
If you want a pure SQL solution, you can do something like this:
WITH     got_break_1_pos        AS
     SELECT     txt
     ,     NVL ( REGEXP_SUBSTR ( SUBSTR (txt, 1, 70)
                              , '.{0,70}\W'
              , SUBSTR (txt, 1, 70)
                )          AS part_1
     FROM    table_x
,     got_part_2     AS
     SELECT     txt
     ,     part_1
     ,     NVL ( REGEXP_SUBSTR ( SUBSTR ( txt
                                                , 1 + LENGTH (part_1)
                                   , 70
                             , '.{0,70}\W'
                 , SUBSTR ( txt
                                , 1 + LENGTH (part_1)
                         , 70
                  )               AS part_2
        FROM     got_break_1_pos
SELECT     txt
,     part_1
,     part_2
,     SUBSTR (txt, 1 + LENGTH (part_1) + LENGTH (part_2))     AS part_3
FROM     got_part_2
;If txt can be broken into N parts, this approach requires N-1 sub-queries.
If you're using Oracle 11.2, you can have a recursive sub-query that can handle any number of parts.
I hope this answers your question.
If not, post a little sample data (CREATE TABLE and INSERT statements, relevant columns only), and also post the results you want from that data.
Explain, using specific examples, how you get those results from that data.
Instead of breaking a string of up to 150 characters into parts of 70 characters or less, let's break a string of up to 20 characters into parts of 7 characters of less. It will make the sample data easier to handle, and you can easily change the colution to fit your real values.
Always say which version of Oracle you're using.