Immediate help with regards to grouping and decoding

Question

Hi all
I have got a problem recently where I was asked whether this can be done using a single SQL statement.
The table data is from a flat file like this.
SITE TOOL PROD TOOLPROD
ABC DEN_01 15 DEN_01
ABC DEN_01 15 DEN_01|01
ABC DEN_01 15 DEN_01|02
ABC DEN_01 15 DEN_01|03
DEF DE_03 17 DE_03
DEF DE_03 17 DE_03|07
DEF DE_03 17 DE_03|08
and the sumarized result set should look like this from above info i.e grouped by site,tool,prod columns and the last columns toolprod concatenated as shown below. There is lot of data like this and hardcoding cannot be done since there are millions of rows like this.
ABC DEN_01 15 DEN_01|DEN_01|01|DEN_01|02|DEN_01|03
DEF DE_03 17 DE_03|DE_03|07|DE_03|08
Appreciate your help
Thanx in advance
Kris

Answer 1

Sys_connect_by_path is a 9i feature that provides the path from the root to the node in a hierarchical query. For an 8i workaround you can use the folloing hiearchy package by Solomon Yakobson. I know the package works in 8i, because that is what it was designed for and I used it in 8i, but I do not know if it will work in conjunction with the rest of the code, as I do not have 8i to test with anymore, and there were some restrictions as to what you could do with hierarchical queries in 8i. You may have to add some additional nesting of inline views or some such thing.
scott@ORA92> -- hierarchy package with branch function by Solomon Yacobson
scott@ORA92> CREATE OR REPLACE
  2   PACKAGE Hierarchy
  3    IS
  4            TYPE BranchTableType IS TABLE OF VARCHAR2(4000)
  5              INDEX BY BINARY_INTEGER;
  6            BranchTable BranchTableType;
  7            FUNCTION Branch(vLevel          IN NUMBER,
  8                      vValue          IN VARCHAR2,
  9                      vDelimiter      IN VARCHAR2 DEFAULT CHR(0))
10                      RETURN VARCHAR2;
11            PRAGMA RESTRICT_REFERENCES(Branch,WNDS);
12  END Hierarchy;
13  /
Package created.
scott@ORA92> CREATE OR REPLACE
  2   PACKAGE BODY Hierarchy
  3    IS
  4            ReturnValue VARCHAR2(4000);
  5    FUNCTION Branch(vLevel          IN NUMBER,
  6                   vValue          IN VARCHAR2,
  7                   vDelimiter    IN VARCHAR2 DEFAULT CHR(0))
  8                   RETURN VARCHAR2
  9       IS
10       BEGIN
11            BranchTable(vLevel) := vValue;
12            ReturnValue := vValue;
13            FOR I IN REVERSE 1..vLevel - 1 LOOP
14              ReturnValue := BranchTable(I)|| vDelimiter || ReturnValue;
15            END LOOP;
16            RETURN ReturnValue;
17    END Branch;
18  END Hierarchy;
19  /
Package body created.
scott@ORA92> select site, tool, prod,
  2           replace (max (hierarchy.branch (level, toolprod)), ',', '|')
  3             as toolprods
  4  from   (select site, tool, prod, toolprod,
  5                row_number () over
  6                  (partition by site, tool, prod
  7                   order by toolprod) as curr,
  8                row_number () over
  9                  (partition by site, tool, prod
10                   order by toolprod) - 1 as prev
11            from   your_table)
12  group  by site, tool, prod
13  start  with curr = 1
14  connect by prior curr = prev
15            and prior site = site
16            and prior tool = tool
17            and prior prod = prod
18  /
SITE TOOL         PROD TOOLPRODS
ABC  DEN_01         15 DEN_01 DEN_01|01 DEN_01|02 DEN_01|03
DEF  DE_03          17 DEN_03 DEN_03|07 DEN_03|08The second solution that I provided, using Tom Kyte's stragg user-defined aggregate function also requires 9i. The third solution with a function specific to the situation should work in 8i though. The following is an addiitional generic option for 8i.
scott@ORA92> CREATE OR REPLACE FUNCTION concatenate
  2    (p_key_name      IN VARCHAR2,
  3       p_key_value      IN VARCHAR2,
  4       p_col_to_concat  IN VARCHAR2,
  5       p_table_name      IN VARCHAR2,
  6       p_separator      IN VARCHAR2 DEFAULT '|')
  7    RETURN              VARCHAR2
  8  AS
  9    TYPE weak_ref_cur IS REF CURSOR;
10    v_string          VARCHAR2 (4000);
11    v_separator         VARCHAR2 (      3) := NULL;
12    v_value              VARCHAR2 (4000);
13    v_cur              weak_ref_cur;
14  BEGIN
15    OPEN v_cur FOR
16          'SELECT ' || p_col_to_concat
17    || ' FROM '   || p_table_name
18    || ' WHERE '  || p_key_name || ' = :b_key_name'
19    || ' ORDER BY :b_col_to_concat'
20    USING p_key_value, p_col_to_concat;
21    LOOP
22        FETCH v_cur INTO v_value;
23        EXIT WHEN v_cur%NOTFOUND;
24          v_string := v_string || v_separator || v_value;
25          v_separator := p_separator;
26    END LOOP;
27    CLOSE v_cur;
28    RETURN v_string;
29  END concatenate;
30  /
Function created.
scott@ORA92> select site, tool, prod,
  2           concatenate ('site || tool || prod',
  3                  site || tool || prod,
  4                  'toolprod', 'your_table') toolprods
  5  from  your_table
  6  group by site, tool, prod
  7  /
SITE TOOL         PROD TOOLPRODS
ABC  DEN_01         15 DEN_01|DEN_01|01|DEN_01|02|DEN_01|03
DEF  DE_03          17 DEN_03|DEN_03|07|DEN_03|08
scott@ORA92>