Place a string before a data type when creating a column in a new table

Question

Hi,
I am trying to create a table in Oracle 10g called Penalty with the following Primary Key; PenaltyType. I wish to insert the word 'penalty' and a single number into each column without creating a sequence, for example penalty1, penalty2, penalty4, penalty9 etc with the number input by the user and the database automatically inserting the word before it.
I am not sure about how I go about creating this as a constraint on the data type, could anyone possibly enlighten me?
I am using code which forms part of a larger SQL script to create a car hire database as detailed below;
CREATE TABLE Penalty
(PenaltyType ???????????????
CONSTRAINT pen_PenaltyType_pk PRIMARY KEY (PenaltyType),
MinDay NUMBER(3),
MaxDay NUMBER(3),
Cost NUMBER(2, 2));
Where the question marks would be replaced by the inserted word and single number to meet data type constraint:- "The word penalty followed by a single number (eg. Penalty1) "
Any help would be most appreciated, hope it's not too confusing, and sorry about formatting but the forum left justifies it all.
Thanks,
Jason

Answer 1

Something like this ?
SQL> desc penalty
Name                                                              Null?    Type
PENALTYTYPE                                                       NOT NULL VARCHAR2(20)
MINDAY                                                                     NUMBER(3)
MAXDAY                                                                     NUMBER(3)
COST                                                                       NUMBER(2,2)
SQL> create or replace trigger trig_penalty
  2  before insert on penalty
  3  for each row
  4  begin
  5     :new.penaltytype := 'Penalty' || trim(to_char(to_number(:new.penaltytype),'000000'));
  6  exception
  7     when others then
  8       raise_application_error(-20001,'Wrong value');
  9* end;
SQL> /
Trigger created.
SQL> insert into penalty(penaltytype) values(1);
1 row created.
SQL> select * from penalty;
PENALTYTYPE                   MINDAY          MAXDAY            COST
Penalty000001
SQL> insert into penalty(penaltytype) values('A');
insert into penalty(penaltytype) values('A')
ERROR at line 1:
ORA-20001: Wrong value
ORA-06512: at "TEST.TRIG_PENALTY", line 5
ORA-04088: error during execution of trigger 'TEST.TRIG_PENALTY'
SQL>BTW, you can use tags, [pre] before text, and [[i]pre] after text, to format it.