Need help converting MS SQL query into Oracle, Function 'WHERE' issues

Question

SELECT PERS_NBR, PAY_ID, PAY_CODE, LOGICAL_DATE, LOGICAL_DATE AS END_DATE, PCNAMES + REPLICATE(',', 39 - (LEN(PCNAMES) - LEN(REPLACE(PCNAMES, ',', ''))))
AS PC_NAMES_FINAL
FROM (SELECT DISTINCT A.PAY_ID, A.PAY_CODE, A.PERS_NBR, A.LOGICAL_DATE, PCNAMES = substring
((SELECT TOP 10 ',' + PC_NAME + ',' + SUBSTRING(CAST(B.VALUE AS VARCHAR), 0, LEN(CAST(B.VALUE AS VARCHAR)) - 2)
FROM T_PAY_CAT_RECORD B
WHERE B.PERS_NBR = A.PERS_NBR AND
B.LOGICAL_DATE = A.LOGICAL_DATE FOR XML path(''), elements), 2, 500)
FROM T_PAY_CAT_RECORD A, T_PERSON P
WHERE A.PERS_NBR = P.NBR) FINAL
Edited by: 919969 on Mar 9, 2012 3:45 PM

Answer 1

Hello
Like any language you need to understand what the messages coming from the syntax check are saying...
XXXX> SELECT PERS_NBR,
  2          PAY_ID,
  3          PAY_CODE,
  4          LOGICAL_DATE,
  5          LOGICAL_DATE AS END_DATE,
  6          PCNAMES || LPAD(',', 39 - (LENGTH(PCNAMES) - NVL(LENGTH(REPLACE(PCNAMES,',')),0)),',') AS PC_NAMES_FINAL
  7    FROM  (
  8           SELECT  PAY_ID,
  9                   PAY_CODE,
10                   PERS_NBR,
11                   LOGICAL_DATE,
12                   SUBSTR(
13                          RTRIM(XMLAGG(XMLELEMENT(e,PC_NAME || ',' || SUBSTR(VALUE,1,LEN(VALUE) - 2),',').EXTRACT('//text()')),',') PCNAMES
14                          2,
15                          500
16                         )
17             FROM  (
18                    SELECT  A.PAY_ID,
19                            A.PAY_CODE,
20                            A.PERS_NBR,
21                            A.LOGICAL_DATE,
22                            A.PC_NAME,
23                            ROW_NUMBER() OVER(PARTITION BY A.PERS_NBR,A.LOGICAL_DATE ORDER BY 1) RN
24                      FROM  T_PAY_CAT_RECORD A,
25                            T_PERSON P
26                      WHERE A.PERS_NBR = P.NBR
27                   )
28             WHERE RN <= 10
29             GROUP BY PAY_ID,
30                      PAY_CODE,
31                      PERS_NBR,
32                      LOGICAL_DATE
33          ) FINAL
34  /
                        RTRIM(XMLAGG(XMLELEMENT(e,PC_NAME || ',' || SUBSTR(VALUE,1,LEN(VALUE) - 2),',').EXTRACT('//text()')),',') PCNAMES
ERROR at line 13:
ORA-00907: missing right parenthesisIf you use something like SQL*Plus or SQL Developer, they will give you the error stack which will point you to the source of the problem.
It's saying missing right parenthesis. Start by finding out if we've got all out matching brackets. Counting from the start of that statement i.e. SUBSTR on line 12, we have 7 open brackets and 6 close brackets. So there does appear to be a problem with brackets. However if we take a step back and look at lines 12 to 16, this is actually a single statement. It's a call to the SUBSTR function and within it it has calls to RTRIM, XMLAGG etc. For the statement as a whole there are the same number of left and right parenthesis so the problem is related to something else. Something that is leading the syntax check to think it has reached the end of a statement and hasn't found enough closing parethesis.
The issue here appears to be that we have the token PCNAMES at the end of line 13 but syntactically that's not correct. We can't have that token there because it's appearing in the middle of a function call. PCTNAMES is actually a column alias but it's just in the wrong place. We need it to be an alias for the whole expression from line 12 to 16. So make the change and see what happens...
XXXX> select PERS_NBR,
  2          PAY_ID,
  3          PAY_CODE,
  4          LOGICAL_DATE,
  5          LOGICAL_DATE AS END_DATE,
  6          PCNAMES || LPAD(',', 39 - (LENGTH(PCNAMES) - NVL(LENGTH(REPLACE(PCNAMES,',')),0)),',') AS PC_NAMES_FINAL
  7    FROM  (
  8           SELECT  PAY_ID,
  9                   PAY_CODE,
10                   PERS_NBR,
11                   LOGICAL_DATE,
12                   SUBSTR(
13                          RTRIM(XMLAGG(XMLELEMENT(e,PC_NAME || ',' || SUBSTR(VALUE,1,LEN(VALUE) - 2),',').EXTRACT('//text()')),',')
14                          2,
15                          500
16                         ) PCNAMES
17             FROM  (
18                    SELECT  A.PAY_ID,
19                            A.PAY_CODE,
20                            A.PERS_NBR,
21                            A.LOGICAL_DATE,
22                            A.PC_NAME,
23                            ROW_NUMBER() OVER(PARTITION BY A.PERS_NBR,A.LOGICAL_DATE ORDER BY 1) RN
24                      FROM  T_PAY_CAT_RECORD A,
25                            T_PERSON P
26                      WHERE A.PERS_NBR = P.NBR
27                   )
28             WHERE RN <= 10
29             GROUP BY PAY_ID,
30                      PAY_CODE,
31                      PERS_NBR,
32                      LOGICAL_DATE
33          ) FINAL
34  /
                        2,
ERROR at line 14:
ORA-00907: missing right parenthesisNOw we've got a new error. Again it's saying we've got a missing parenthesis but this time on line 14. The issue here is that line 13 is a parameter to the SUBSTR function but there is no comma on the end. What we actually have at the moment is a line that looks like so
RTRIM(XMLAGG(XMLELEMENT(e,PC_NAME || ',' || SUBSTR(VALUE,1,LEN(VALUE) - 2),',').EXTRACT('//text()')),',') 2,Which is just not formed correctly. We need a comma at the end of line 13 to state that this is the end of that line as a parameter.
XXXX> select PERS_NBR,
  2          PAY_ID,
  3          PAY_CODE,
  4          LOGICAL_DATE,
  5          LOGICAL_DATE AS END_DATE,
  6          PCNAMES || LPAD(',', 39 - (LENGTH(PCNAMES) - NVL(LENGTH(REPLACE(PCNAMES,',')),0)),',') AS PC_NAMES_FINAL
  7    FROM  (
  8           SELECT  PAY_ID,
  9                   PAY_CODE,
10                   PERS_NBR,
11                   LOGICAL_DATE,
12                   SUBSTR(
13                          RTRIM(XMLAGG(XMLELEMENT(e,PC_NAME || ',' || SUBSTR(VALUE,1,LEN(VALUE) - 2),',').EXTRACT('//text()')),','),
14                          2,
15                          500
16                         ) PCNAMES
17             FROM  (
18                    SELECT  A.PAY_ID,
19                            A.PAY_CODE,
20                            A.PERS_NBR,
21                            A.LOGICAL_DATE,
22                            A.PC_NAME,
23                            ROW_NUMBER() OVER(PARTITION BY A.PERS_NBR,A.LOGICAL_DATE ORDER BY 1) RN
24                      FROM  T_PAY_CAT_RECORD A,
25                            T_PERSON P
26                      WHERE A.PERS_NBR = P.NBR
27                   )
28             WHERE RN <= 10
29             GROUP BY PAY_ID,
30                      PAY_CODE,
31                      PERS_NBR,
32                      LOGICAL_DATE
33          ) FINAL
34  /
                          T_PERSON P
ERROR at line 25:
ORA-00942: table or view does not existNow we have a new error but this time it's because I don't have the t_person table on my database. Syntactically the statement above is now correct so it should work on your system.
HTH
David
Edited by: Bravid on Mar 12, 2012 10:20 AM