Lexical Parameter in Reports 6i Program Unit

Question

A report I'm writing requires me to use the lexical parameter in a program unit rather than a query in the data model. Lexical parameters in a query have always worked with the example "WHERE &my_parameter". But using "WHERE :my_parameter" or "WHERE &my_parameter" in a program unit gave me the error "expression is of wrong type" so the code wouldn't compile in the editor.
The parameter returns "segment1 = '8675309' AND segment2 = 'Jenny'I was able to resolve it by using the first column of the expression and the replace function on the parameter so the program unit editor thinks it's a valid expression and the resulting line is a valid predicate that gets the correct data. Here's my example:
WHERE segment1 = replace(:my_parameter, 'segment1 = ')The replace function strips off the "segment1 = " from the lexical parameter so the resulting line that gets passed to the server is:
WHERE segment1 = '8675309' AND segment2 = 'Jenny'This solution will not work where the parameter could return something other than "segment1 = " at the beginning of the parameter string like "segment1 BETWEEN " or a different column name to compare other than segment1. Anyway, this is working but if there are better ways to do it I'd like to try them. Using Reports 6i with EBS 11.5.10.2.

Answer 1

Hello,
You'll find explanations and examples here :
http://www.oracle.com/webapps/online-help/reports/10.1.2/topics/htmlhelp_rwbuild_hs/rwwhthow/whatare/dmobj/sq_a_lexical_references.htm
This documentation is for Reports 10.1.2 but is valid for Reports 6i too ...
Regards