Tyring to dynamically create SQL statment for an SQL Calendar

Question

Is there a way to dynamically create an SQL statement that an SQL Calendar would use. I don't see an option to create a PL/SQL Calendar.
For example I want to pass a table name, and the corresponding date column to items on the calendar page, and then have the SQL Calendar use those to fields to display the number of records loaded into the specified table. I've written the following but it doesn't work:
'SELECT count(*), ' || :P8_SOURCE_DATE || ' FROM ' || :P8_SOURCE_TABLE || ' GROUP BY ' || :P8_SOURCE_DATE;
Does anyone know if there is a why to create a PL/SQL Calendar?

Answer 1

Jason,
it is possible, though not so simple as with a report.
What you need to do is to create a pipelined function, that returns your date and count data. This pipelined function can be the base of a pseudo-table, which can be used in a select. For the pipelined function you need to define types for one row and a table to define the return-type for your function:
create or replace type calendar_row as object (date_time date, description varchar2(250));
create type calendar_table as table of calendar_row;
Then you can create the package with the function:
================================================
create or replace package dyn_calendar is
procedure set_query(i_query in varchar2);
function view_source return calendar_table pipelined;
end;
create or replace package body dyn_calendar is
v_query varchar2(100) := null;
procedure set_query(i_query in varchar2) is
begin
v_query := i_query;
end;
function view_source return calendar_table pipelined is
TYPE cursor IS REF CURSOR;
c_cal cursor;
v_date_time date := null;
v_description varchar2(100) := null;
r_cal calendar_row;
begin
open c_cal for v_query;
fetch c_cal into v_date_time, v_description;
loop
exit when c_cal%notfound;
r_cal := calendar_row(v_date_time, v_description);
pipe row(r_cal);
fetch c_cal into v_date_time, v_description;
end loop;
return;
end;
end;
================================================
Now you can set query in a PL/SL region before the calendar:
dyn_calendar.set_query(SELECT count(*), ' || :P8_SOURCE_DATE || ' FROM ' || :P8_SOURCE_TABLE || ' GROUP BY ' || :P8_SOURCE_DATE);
and you can base your calendar on the query:
select * from table(dyn_calendar(view_source))
Good luck,
Dik