Retrieve as many duplicate records as a value stored in one of the columns

Question

Hi,
I have a peculiar requirement where I want multiple copies of rows the count of which is determined by one of the column values:
create table test (id number, value number, data varchar2(100));
insert into test values (1,5,'one');
insert into test values (2,2,'two);
insert into test values (3,3,'three');
insert into test values (4,4,'four');
insert into test values (5,5,'five');
select * from test where id=3;
I get:
id,value,data
3,3,three
I want:
id,value,data
3,3,three_1
3,3,three_2
3,3,three_3
i.e. Althought there is ONLY ONE row for the id=3, but as the column value=3, i want 3 rows from this table (all identical) except the last column to which I append a running sequential number.
How to do that?
Thanks.

Answer 1

You have still pipelined function :
SQL> create or replace type TypeTest as object (id number, value number, data varchar2(100));
  2  /
Type created.
SQL>
SQL> create or replace type ListTest as table of TypeTest;
  2  /
Type created.
SQL>
SQL> create or replace function TblTest(p_id number default null)
  2  return ListTest
  3  pipelined
  4  is
  5  begin
  6      for x in (select id, value, data from test where id = nvl(p_id,id)) loop
  7          for i in 1.. x.value loop
  8              pipe row (TypeTest(x.id, x.value, x.data||'_'||to_char(i)));
  9          end loop;
10      end loop;
11      return;
12  end;
13  /
Function created.
SQL> show err
No errors.
SQL>
SQL> select * from table(TblTest(3));
        ID      VALUE DATA
         3          3 three_1
         3          3 three_2
         3          3 three_3
SQL> select * from table(TblTest);
        ID      VALUE DATA
         1          5 one_1
         1          5 one_2
         1          5 one_3
         1          5 one_4
         1          5 one_5
         2          2 two_1
         2          2 two_2
         3          3 three_1
         3          3 three_2
         3          3 three_3
         4          4 four_1
         4          4 four_2
         4          4 four_3
         4          4 four_4
         5          5 five_1
         5          5 five_2
         5          5 five_3
         5          5 five_4
         5          5 five_5
19 rows selected.
SQL> Nicolas.