Using an array in IN

Question

I'm using the pl/sql web toolkit, and have a page with checkboxes galore. These pass to the handling procedure as an owa_util.ident_arr. The values that are passed in this array correspond to codes that I need to have in a WHERE clause of some SQl on the handling page...I think I can do something like:
PROCEDURE P_STU_ALL_LIST
p_status_filter owa_util.ident_arr
IS
lv_status_in owa_util.ident_arr DEFAULT p_status_filter;
FOR i IN lv_status_in.FIRST..lv_status_in.LAST
LOOP
where_clause := lv_status(i)||',"
END LOOP;
and then do:
SELECT columns FROM table WHERE MyCodes IN where_clause
but I wonder if there's a way to simply pass the array to the SQL WHERE, like:
SELECT columns FROM table WHERE MyCodes IN table(case(lv_status as ???))
which is described here http://dbaforums.org/oracle/lofiversion/index.php?t15523.html but I can't seem to get the syntax right...I'm not sure what to use as the ??? datatype (anything I try gives errors).
Any ideas...?

Answer 1

oBean wrote:
I'm using the pl/sql web toolkit, and have a page with checkboxes galore. These pass to the handling procedure as an owa_util.ident_arr. The values that are passed in this array correspond to codes that I need to have in a WHERE clause of some SQl on the handling page...I think I can do something like:
PROCEDURE P_STU_ALL_LIST
p_status_filter owa_util.ident_arr
IS
lv_status_in owa_util.ident_arr DEFAULT p_status_filter;
FOR i IN lv_status_in.FIRST..lv_status_in.LAST
LOOP
where_clause := lv_status(i)||',"
END LOOP;Horrible. You are creating non-shareable SQL. This is the #1 reason for shoddy Oracle performance.
You cannot use PL/SQL associative arrays in SQL - as the SQL engine does not support PL/SQL data types. PL/SQL however integrates with SQL and support SQL data types.
So you will need to convert the PL/SQL associative array to a SQL collection/array - and then use that SQL type as a bind variable in the SQL statement.
E.g.
{code}
SQL> create or replace type TStrings as table of varchar2(4000);
Type created.
SQL> create or replace procedure FunkyProc( c out sys_refcursor, arr OWA_UTIL.ident_arr ) is
2 sqlArr TStrings;
3 begin
4 sqlArr := new TStrings();
5 sqlArr.Extend( arr.Count );
6 for i in 1..arr.Count loop
7 sqlArr(i) := arr(i);
8 end loop;
9 open c for
10 select
11 object_type, object_name
12 from all_objects
13 where object_type member of sqlArr
14 and owner != 'SYS'
15 and rownum < 11
16 order by 2;
17 end;
18 /
Procedure created.
SQL>
SQL> var c refcursor
SQL> declare
2 arr OWA_UTIL.ident_arr;
3 begin
4 arr(1) := 'TYPE';
5 arr(2) := 'PACKAGE';
6 arr(3) := 'FUNCTION';
7
8 FunkyProc( :c, arr );
9 end;
10 /
PL/SQL procedure successfully completed.
SQL> print c
OBJECT_TYPE OBJECT_NAME
PACKAGE LT
FUNCTION WM$CONVERTDBVERSION
TYPE WM$ED_UNDO_CODE_NODE_TYPE
TYPE WM$ED_UNDO_CODE_TABLE_TYPE
TYPE WM$EVENT_TYPE
FUNCTION WM$GETDBVERSIONSTR
TYPE WM$LOCK_TABLE_TYPE
TYPE WM$NV_PAIR_NT_TYPE
TYPE WM$NV_PAIR_TYPE
TYPE WM_PERIOD
10 rows selected.
SQL>
{code}
PS. A bit of a hack is used to read the associative array - but mostly this will work as developers using associative arrays are ignorant as to how it should be used. They use it as a normal vanilla array. Including the idiots that designed the OWA_UTIL.ident_arr data type as an associative array as oppose to a standard array.