Help to frame a Query

Question

Hi All,
I need your help in framing a query.
I need to populate a multi-record block having, say 2 where conditions. Hold on...its not straight forward...
An example:
I need to select EMPNO, ENAME, SAL from EMP
where DEPTNO in ()
and JOB in ()
I have a multi-record block for DEPTNO with check-boxes for each DEPTNO and another block for JOB as well.
What I am currently doing is whenever a check-box is selected in the DEPTNO block I capture the value in a variable, say v_selectdeptno and similarly for JOB, say in v_selectjob with appropriate quotes as well (like 'CLERK','SALESMAN').
Now my query looked like:
Cursor C1 is
select EMPNO, ENAME, SAL from EMP
where DEPTNO in (v_selectdeptno)
and JOB in (v_selectjob);
The values in the variable for v_selectdeptno were '10','20' (in this example please assume DEPTNO is a varchar2 datatype)
and for v_selectjob were 'CLERK','SALESMAN'.
Now if I fetch this loop into the multi-record block where it has to be displayed I don't get any result. But the same query works fine if the values selected are just one, meaning '10' for v_selectdeptno and 'CLERK' for v_selectjob.
I am not sure what I am missing here. Please do help. I hope I have explained my problem clearly.
Thanks in advance.

Answer 1

This block will parse the parse_Str variable into a comma delimited quoted string. Please note it is not tested and may not be be optimally written but it should give you an idea of how to build the string. Remember if you are dealing with numbers you will not need quotes.
You can run it in sql*plus but remember to SET SERVEROUTPUT ON and DBMS_OUTPUT.ENABLE(100000); if you need them.
DECLARE
parse_str varchar2(200) := '10,20,30,40,100';
where_clause varchar2(4000) := 'deptno in (';
value varchar2(200) := null;
end_pos number := 1;
function q(str in varchar2) return varchar2 is
begin
return ''''||str||'''';
end;
BEGIN
while true loop
     end_pos := instr(parse_str,',');
     if end_pos = 0 then
value := substr(parse_str,1);
where_clause := where_clause||q(value)||')';
     else
value := substr(parse_str,1,end_pos - 1);
where_clause := where_clause||q(value)||',';
     end if;
parse_str := substr(parse_str,end_pos + 1);
exit when end_pos = 0;
end loop;
dbms_output.put_line(where_clause);
END;
Hope it is useful to you