Is it possible to have business rules as a table

Question

Hello Friends,
I have an application where in which I had altogether some x procedures, y fucntions and z triggers .
Right now I have implemented all the business rules in the procedures, triggers , and fucntons. Is it possible to have
the implementatkon of business rules as a table so that i can use the table as a rules engine .
I have done with java technologory usaing the business rules as a seperate external file and reading the file for business rules. How about oracle is it possible. If yes can any one give a scenario how i can implement.
thanks/kumar

Answer 1

As posted, your whole procedure could be replaced with:
procedure update_paycheck_deductions is
   cursor c1 is select * from MINC ;
   cursor c2 is select * from FINC ;
   v_flag_boolean boolean := false;
   v_famid number ;
BEGIN
   for i in c2 loop
      for j in c1 loop
         if ( i.famid = j.famid ) then
            v_flag_boolean := true;
            v_famid := j.famid;
         end if ;
      end loop ;
      if ( v_flag_boolean = true ) then
         update FINC set famtfedx = 0 WHERE famid = v_famid ;
         update FINC set fgovretx = 0 WHERE famid = v_famid ;
         update FINC set fpripenx = 0 WHERE famid = v_famid ;
         update FINC set frrdedx = 0 WHERE famid = v_famid ;
         update FINC set fsltaxx = 0 WHERE famid = v_famid ;
      end if;
      v_temp_sum_anfedtx := 0;
      v_temp_sum_angovrtx := 0;
      v_temp_sum_anprvpnx := 0;
      v_temp_sum_anrrdedx := 0;
      v_temp_sum_ansltx := 0;
   end loop;
end;Since none of the j.column != null and predicates will ever be true. This is roughly equivalent to your code:
SQL> WITH t AS (
  2     SELECT 10 amount, 'Y' col2 FROM dual UNION ALL
  3     SELECT null, 'Y' FROM dual UNION ALL
  4     SELECT 25, 'N' FROM dual)
  5  SELECT amount, col2, CASE WHEN amount != NULL and
  6                               col2 != 'N' THEN amount
  7                          ELSE 0 END eval_amount
  8  FROM t;
    AMOUNT C EVAL_AMOUNT
        10 Y           0
           Y           0
        25 N           0This would simplify Toon's merge statement to:
merge
into FINC f
using (select distinct j.famid, 0 amount
       from MINC j) m
on (f.famid = m.famid)
when matched then
update set f.famtfedx = m.amount
          ,f.fgovretx = m.amount
          ,f....      = m.amount
          ,f....      = m.amount
          ,f....      = m.amountWhich could be further simplified to:
update finc
set famtfedx = 0,
    fgovretx = 0,
where famid in (select famid from minc)Whiich strikes me as an odd business rule, specially for one dealing with (apparently) payroll.
I won't go into the fact that you will scan every record in once for every record in minc. I hope these are not large tables.
I have seen a number, and even worked on a a couple of payroll systems based on "business" rules in tables to avoid putting the rules in code. None of them were very good and perfomance tended to lag when there were more than a few people to pay.
You need to explain a lot more about what sort of business rules you want to put into tables.
John