ORA-01745 when running Explain Plan

Question

Hello everybody,
I would like to know what is the best way to report a bug. In fact I believe just found one and I would like it fixed. I am using the latest version of SQLDeveloper on WinXP that uses its own JDK.
To replicate the bug it's very easy, just try to do an explain plan of the following query:
SELECT * FROM scott.emp
where empno = &&emp_nr;and the "*ORA-01745: invalid host/bind variable name*" error appears. Since the query executes properly, but the Explain plan errors out, I believe this could be a bug.
Thanks,
Paolo

Answer 1

Gary,
thanks a lot for your feedback.
I have found this weird behaviour, because I was trying to avoid another one. In fact I tried using the substitution variable syntax instead of the bind variable syntax in SQLDeveloper, especially to avoid the issues coming from automatic data conversions.
For example, if I run the following query using the bind variable syntax (passing SYSDATE as the parameter value):
SELECT *
   FROM scott.emp
  WHERE hiredate BETWEEN TRUNC(:p_eff_date,'yyyy')
                     AND TRUNC(add_months(:p_eff_date,12),'yyyy') - 1;it will go in error with "*ORA-00932: inconsistent datatypes: expected DATE got NUMBER*", because the filter predicate will be converted automatically as follows:
TRUNC(TO_NUMBER(:P_EFF_DATE),TO_NUMBER('yyyy'))<=TRUNC(ADD_MONTHS(:P_EFF_DATE,12),'fmyyyy')-1This behaviour is visible by running the explain plan on the above query. Isn't that TO_NUMBER(:P_EFF_DATE),TO_NUMBER('yyyy') a little bit too wrong? Note that the second occurrence of the P_EFF_DATE parameter does not get converted. Can't this "automatic conversion" behaviour be disabled somehow?
Due to this weird issue I tried to use the substitution variable syntax, but the main issue with the single ampersand is that you have to enter the value of the parameter as many times as the parameter is referenced in the query and you can imagine that with big queries written by other people this is not so easy.
Is there another way to pass parameters to a query in the SQL Worksheet? How can I "use literals rather than variables" as you suggest? Do you mean NOT using parameters at all?
Thanks,
Paolo