Reg: PIVOTing XML -

Question

Hi Experts,
I'm going through this nice article on PIVOT but the PIVOT XML doesn't seem to work as demonstrated.
ORACLE-BASE - PIVOT and UNPIVOT Operators in Oracle Database 11g Release 1
ranit@XE11GR2>> ed
Wrote file c:\rb\1.sql
  1  select * from (
  2     select product_code --customer_id, quantity,
  3     from pivot_test
  4  ) PIVOT (
  5     COUNT(product_code) as prod
  6             FOR(product_code) in ('A','B','C')
  7* )
ranit@XE11GR2>> /
  'A'_PROD   'B'_PROD   'C'_PROD
         4          2          3
Elapsed: 00:00:00.01
ranit@XE11GR2>> ed
Wrote file c:\rb\1.sql
  1  select * from (
  2     select product_code --customer_id, quantity,
  3     from pivot_test
  4  ) PIVOT XML (
  5     COUNT(product_code) as prod
  6             FOR(product_code) in ('A','B','C')
  7* )
ranit@XE11GR2>> /
                FOR(product_code) in ('A','B','C')
ERROR at line 6:
ORA-00905: missing keyword
Does it mean: hard-coded values can't at all be used inside the IN clause (and always it should be a sub-query) ?
Any pointers? Help is much appreciated.
Oracle version: Oracle Database 11g Express Edition Release 11.2.0.2.0 - Production
Thanks,
Ranit

Answer 1

Hi, Ranit.
Review the documentation for PIVOT XML in the SQL Language manual:
SELECT
which says "You cannot specify XML when you specify explicit pivot values using expressions in the pivot_in_clause."
Notice that none of the XML examples on the Oracle-Base page are like the one you posted.  I find Oracle-Base a little misleading when it says "Adding the XML keyword to the PIVOT operator allows us to convert the generated pivot results to XML format. It also makes the PIVOT a little more flexible, allowing us to replace the hard coded IN clause with a subquery, or the ANY wildcard."
The XML keyword is actually requiring us to replace the hard coded IN clause.