How to fill a sparse table with zero

Question

Hi All
I have a sparse table, most of the cells is null, but and few of the cells is "1"
I would like to fill the null with zero.
This table is from pivoting a transactional table into a table that will describe the attributes and later on for data mining
I am thinking of
1) do a user_tab_columns and copy and paste make a script that use NVL
for e.g.
select 'NVL('||column_name||',0,'||column_name||'),' from user_tab_columns
where lower(table_name) = 'claims_t1'
but I run into an issue
e.g.
create or replace view claims_t2x
as
select
NVL('Diagnostic Imaging'_SPEC_SUM,0,'Diagnostic Imaging'_SPEC_SUM) 'Diagnostic Imaging'_SPEC_SUM
from
claims_t1
I keep getting error of ORA-00911: invalid character
as the column name got "'" in it.
or
2)Use PL/SQL
I just do a select and loop through the whole thing
For 2), I am not sure how I can get all the column attribute.
As the attribute in the transaction table is not fix so the number of column after pivoting is not fix
any idea?
-Thanks so much for your input.
Edited by: xwo0owx on Apr 27, 2011 11:08 AM

Answer 1

>
pivoting A transactional TABLE INTO A TABLE that will describe THE ATTRIBUTES AND later ON FOR DATA mining
>
You should have created all the columns with DEFAULT 0 NOT NULL;
Why doing all this every time. Why not generate the table itself like that?
what do you mean by a fill? you want to update them?
then loop through and update like this,
DECLARE
   p_tab_name   VARCHAR2 (100) := 'your_table_name';
   l_sql        VARCHAR2 (1000);
BEGIN
   FOR i IN (SELECT *
               FROM user_tab_columns
              WHERE table_name = p_tab_name
                AND datatype IN ('VARCHAR2', 'NUMBER', 'CHAR'))
   LOOP
      l_sql :=
            'update '
         || p_tab_name
         || ' set '
         || i.column_name
         || '=0 where '
         || i.column_name
         || ' is null';
      EXECUTE IMMEDIATE l_sql;
   END LOOP;
END;G.