How to show 'No Records Found' and 'Employee Name Unknown' in oracle report

Question

Hello,
I'm using 6i and building a report to show employees who have incorrectly input their time. I have an input parameter so a user can select a specific employee by emp_id or can leave it empty to show all. That part works. I also have date parameters that are required. That works too. However I am having trouble displaying 'NO Records Found' if the date parameters have no late or rejected employee time records. I currently have it as a text field arranged behind the emp_name field which i filled white. It works...however i have a pretty good feeling there is a better way to do this. Also, I have some data that is null since i am using two tables. There are time stamps with no emp_name or emp_number. I still need to show these records but want them to show up as "Employee Name Unknown" that way the user doesnt get confused and thinks the emp_name in the row above also includes this row.
select e.location "Clock Location",
e.emp_no "Emp No",
l.first_name ||' ' || last_name "Name",
e.time_stamp "Time",
from emp_time e, master_all l
where e.emp_no (+) = l.emp_no
and e.status = 'rejected'
--and e.emp_no  = nvl (:p_emp_no, emp_no)
--and e.time_stamp between :p_start_date and :p_end_date                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                   

Answer 1

Hi,
So, when the join between emp_time and master_all produces no rows, you still want one row of output, saying 'No Records Found'; is that right?
If so, you can outer-join the result set to dual, with some join condition that accepts anything.
Use CASE (or equivalents) to get special values (like 'No Record Found' or 'Employee name unknown') when certain columns are NULL.
For example:
SELECT     j.location     AS "Clock Location"
,     j.emp_no     AS "Emp No"
,     CASE
          WHEN  j.name     IS NULL
          THEN  'No Records Found'
          ELSE  j.name
     END          AS "Name"
,     time_stamp     AS "Time"
FROM     dual     d
,     (     -- Begin in-line view j, join of emp_time and master_all
          SELECT     e.location
          ,     e.emp_no
          ,     CASE
                   WHEN  l.first_name IS NULL
                   AND       last_name    IS NULL
                   THEN  'Employee name unknown'
                   ELSE  l.first_name || ' ' || last_name
               END     AS name
          FROM      emp_time     e
          ,     master_all     l
          WHERE     e.emp_no (+)       = l.emp_no
          AND      e.status (+)       = 'rejected'
--           AND     e.emp_no (+)        = NVL (:p_emp_no, emp_no)
--           AND       e.time_stamp (+)  BETWEEN :p_start_date
                                         AND        :p_end_date
     ) j     -- End in-line view j, join of emp_time and master_all
WHERE     d.dummy     != j.name (+)
;In an outer join, all conditions involiving the optional table need a + sign; otherwise, the effect is the same as an inner join.
The message 'No Records Found' is a string, so it has to go in a string column.
I put it in the "Name" column, just because I knew that "Name" was a string.
You can put in in any other column if you wish. If that column is not already a string, then use TO_CHAR to make it a string.
You could also have a column just for this message.
I hope this answers your question.
If not, post a little sample data (CREATE TABLE and INSERT statements, relevant columns only) for all tables, and also post the results you want from that data.
DOUBLE U wrote:
I've tried nvl in the select statement but since emp_name is a concatination of first and last name it doesnt work. This is what i have tried
nvl(l.first_name|' '||l.last_name,'NO EMPLOYEE RECORD FOUND') "Employee",I assume you meant to have two | characters, not just one, after first_name.
The first argument to NVL will never be NULL in that case; it will always contain at least a space, whether or not the other columns are NULL. You could say:
NVL ( NULLIF ( l.first_name || ' ' || l.last_name
    , 'NO EMPLOYEE RECORD FOUND'
    )        "Employee",bujt I find it less confusing to use CASE, as shown above.