Quoted string in select

Question

When doing a select statement, is it possible to get sqlplus to automatically put quotes around data in varchar columns?

Answer 1

Rick,
Yes, this is possible. I'm guessing that you want to generate output that can be imported into another system or application? Regardless, this is how you'd do it.
Lets say you have a table called EMP, with columns LAST_NAME VARCHAR2(40) and FIRST_NAME VARCHAR2(40), and you want your output to look like this:
LAST_NAME FIRST_NAME
'Smith' 'John'
your SELECT statement should be:
SELECT ''''||last_name||'''' last_name, ''''||first_name||'''' first_name FROM emp;
Now if you're creating a comma-delimited file, and want your output to be:
'Smith','John'
your SELECT statement would be something like this:
SELECT ''''||last_name||''','''||first_name||'''' FROM emp;
Enjoy!
Armand