Substitutional Variables

Question

Q. Create a script name LOADEMP.sql to load rows into my_employee table. Concatenate first letter of firstname and first 7 characters of second name to produce the user id .
my code
INSERT INTO my_employee(id,last_name,first_name,userid,salary)
VALUES (&id ,'&lastname','&firstname',LOWER(CONCAT(SUBSTR ('&firstname',1,1),SUBSTR('&lastname',1,7))),&salary);
the code works fine on isql *plus , but when i use the sql plus command prompt it asks for the firstname and lastname twice . how can i use the value stored in the variable &firstname again without invoking it again.
i'm a newbie , please help me

Answer 1

SQL> var lname varchar2(50)
SQL> var fname varchar2(50)
SQL> accept lname prompt "enter last name :"
enter last name :abcdef
SQL> accept fname prompt "enter first name :"
enter first name :xxxxxxx
SQL> INSERT INTO my_employee(id,last_name,first_name,user_id,salary)
  2  VALUES (&id ,'&lname','&fname',
  3         LOWER(CONCAT(SUBSTR ('&fname',1,1),SUBSTR('&lname',1,7))),&salary);
Enter value for id: 1
old   2: VALUES (&id ,'&lname','&fname',
new   2: VALUES (1 ,'abcdef','xxxxxxx',
Enter value for salary: 1000
old   3:        LOWER(CONCAT(SUBSTR ('&fname',1,1),SUBSTR('&lname',1,7))),&salary)
new   3:        LOWER(CONCAT(SUBSTR ('xxxxxxx',1,1),SUBSTR('abcdef',1,7))),1000)
1 row created.
SQL> select * from my_employee;
        ID LAST_NAME  FIRST_NAME USER_ID      SALARY
         1 abcdef     xxxxxxx    xabcdef        1000