Query on Multi-select Item and STRING_TO_TABLE

Question

Hi everyone - here's the scoop:
I've got a multi-select item on a US state field that returns one or more state ID selected (eg. '15:26:49'). I want to use that to find rows in a table where the state ID is one of those values. State ID is indexed and I want to ensure that the index can be used, so I don't want to be doing "where instr(...)".
I read a post on Ask Tom - http://asktom.oracle.com/pls/asktom/f?p=100:11:0::::P11_QUESTION_ID:110612348061 - where he parses a string of values into a table that can be used in an IN clause, thus allowing use of the index.
Here's my question - I'd like to take advantage of APEX_UTIL.STRING_TO_TABLE to do my parsing, but it returns APEX_APPLICATION_GLOBAL.VC_ARR2. I tried a bunch of different casts but couldn't make it work with a query done as per Tom Kyte's post. Ultimately I wrapped STRING_TO_TABLE and just "copy" the VC_ARR2 to a table of numbers, like this:
create or replace function string_to_numtbl(p_string in varchar2, p_separator in varchar2 default ':')
return num_table as
l_data num_table := num_table();
l_vc_arr2 APEX_APPLICATION_GLOBAL.VC_ARR2;
begin
l_vc_arr2 := APEX_UTIL.STRING_TO_TABLE(p_string, p_separator);
FOR z IN 1..l_vc_arr2.count LOOP
l_data.extend;
l_data(l_data.count) := l_vc_arr2(z);
END LOOP;
return l_data;
end;
So I can use the multi-select to feed an IN clause. I'm still getting familiar with casts, but it seems to me thought that there ought to be a straighter path to allow the return of APEX_UTIL.STRING_TO_TABLE to be used in an IN.
Any thoughts?

Answer 1

VC_ARR2 is an index by table and in the Tom's example he is using a nested table which
has a different structure and allows different operations. To make this short, you will not be
able to use VC_ARR2 in a SQL statement. Yes, it would be good since ApEx has its own
function to convert a string to a table and back. I have no problems using Tom's examle.
Here, you will find some description on differences:
http://www.unix.org.ua/orelly/oracle/prog2/ch19_09.htm
and here, you may want to se the utilization of PL/SQL collections on my demo application:
http://htmldb.oracle.com/pls/otn/f?p=31517:84
http://htmldb.oracle.com/pls/otn/f?p=31517:87
Denes Kubicek