Parameterized report based on mutually exclusive items

Question

Hi guys,
if you visit :
http://apex.oracle.com/pls/apex/f?p=59187:1
you see that the Select List Item " Property_type" has few values based on which the rest of the items get rendered.
How Can I write a query to get the correct result based on the chosen values ????
In other words,
If the Value of the Item "P1_property_type" is 'Apartment' Then the Item "P1_beds" gets rendered and sould be considered in the query.
( the un-rendered items should be ignored in the query )
If the Value of the Item "P1_property_type" is 'Villa' Then the Item "P1_beds" does get rendered and sould not be considered in the query.
If the Value of the Item "P1_property_type" is 'Office' Then the Item "P1_beds" does not get rendered and sould not be considered in the query. But the Items "P1_Max_Sqft" and "P1_Min_Sqft" get rendered and should be considered in the query.
If the the Select Value items contain the default values then that should be similar to ( select * from srm ) except for if "P1_property_type" has its default value then the page should not be submitted.... ( there should be an alert )
Work Space: somefeto
User name: [email protected]
Password: Firas
App: 59187 ( the executive towers )
I hope my question is clear...& thanks for the help...
Regards,
Fateh

Answer 1

Fateh,
The short answer is yes this is possible but there are many ways to achieve this and I will offer you two of them.
1. Test for null or value
basically all you do is for every item rather than checking its value against the column you check to see if it is null or if it matches the value of a column this way this input has no effect on the query if it is null. This approach is fine for smaller datasets but maybe not the best for larger datasets. (of course this is always case by case)
select *
  from table
where (:item1 is null or
        column1 = :item1)
   and (:item2 is null or
        column2 = :item2)
   and (:item3 is null or
        column3 = :item3)2. function returning query
If your inputs have a value then add them to the predicate of your query. This can be encapsulated into a database package/function. we add the 1=1 as the first part of the predicate so it is easier to manage the "and"ing.
declare
  v_sql varchar2(32000);
begin
  v_sql := 'select * from table where 1=1 ';
  if :item1 is not null then
    v_sql := v_sql || 'and column1 = :item1 ';
  end if;
  if :item2 is not null then
    v_sql := v_sql || 'and column2 = :item2 ';
  end if;
  if :item3 is not null then
    v_sql := v_sql || 'and column3 = :item3 ';
  end if;
  return(v_sql);
end;These are not the only options out there but this should cover many situations. If you want to get really crazy you can create a sql type and return that from a pipelined function and cast that as a table. I would generally stick to one of these two options though :P.
Cheers,
Tyson Jouglet