ORA-06502: PL/SQL error with dimensions and roles

Question

Hi everyone,
When executing a mapping that loads a cube we are always getting that ORA-06502: PL/SQL error character string buffer too small
The cube contains a number of dimensions, some of them with roles. We've checked that the error appears when we use two different lookup operators to fill dimension atributtes in the cube and its correspondent role. If we map dimension attributes with lookup operator, and the role attributes with constants, the mapping executes without any error. Moreover, even thought it doesnt make any sense, if we map the role dimension attributes with a lookup operator linked to a different dimension, it works too.
We think that this could be due to attributes names, maybe they are too long, but we have tried to make them shorter and still getting the same error.
Any ideas of what could be happening?
Thank you so much in advance.

Answer 1

The return datatype in a PLSQL function is unconstrained. Which means it does not have a size.
The size is declared on the receiving end.
What size variable are you trying to return your value into?
Here is an example...
SQL>create or replace function my_func
  2  return varchar2
  3  is
  4  begin
  5    return USER;
  6  end;
  7  /
Function created.
SQL>declare
  2    my_string varchar2(30);
  3  begin
  4    my_string := my_func;
  5  end;
  6  /
PL/SQL procedure successfully completed.
SQL>declare
  2    my_string varchar2(3);
  3  begin
  4    my_string := my_func;
  5  end;
  6  /
declare
ERROR at line 1:
ORA-06502: PL/SQL: numeric or value error: character string buffer too small
ORA-06512: at line 4