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2194.1 COMMON SQL*PLUS QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS ILAHIRI

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What is the purpose of the COPY command ? Copy command in SQL*Plus is useful when you want to transfer data between Oracle and NON-Oracle databases. If you want to copy Oracle table to another Oracle table, use "create table .. as select .." or "create table, insert into .. select .." statements. Columns may lose precision if you copy from Oracle rdbms to Oracle rdbms. How can I select data to the 'same line' in SQL*Plus: For example you want to show sum_of_salaries/department in one line instead of 4 lines: select sum(decode(deptno,10,sal,0)) sal_10, sum(decode(deptno,20,sal,0)) sal_20, sum(decode(deptno,30,sal,0)) sal_30, sum(decode(deptno,40,sal,0)) sal_40 from emp; How to start a SQL*Plus script when at least one row is found from a table ? If no rows are found, then nothing should be started. Use a script like the following: spool tmp.sql Select decode(greatest(count(*),0),'0','start dummy','start script') from tablex where colx = meter; spool off @tmp It will start the dummy (which does nothing) if no rows are returned, otherwize it will start the "script".

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Q: How to use "set pause" in SQL*Plus ? A: For example to get 'Underlined prompt' in a VT220 terminal use the following code in your login.sql: set pause [1m[4m'Underline prompt'[m set pause on Note that the must be a real esc, not the characters <,E,S,C and >. Q: A: Q: How to show all of a long field ? set long 4000 set array 1 I get "ORA-907: Missing right parenthesis", but I have enough parenthesis ? My select statement is: select * from emp where ('A%' is null

or empno in (select empno from emp e emp su where empno=7999)) and 1=1; A: Q: A: Sometimes the error messages are misleading, the actual error is a missing comma on line 3. Why is my update script getting slow when I update a lot of rows ? If you want to update many rows in a table by a PL/SQL block, and you use a cursor to that table, the rollback segments are released only when you CLOSE the cursor. Thus, as time passes with the cursor still open, the process slows down because it has to keep searching an increasingly large rollback segment to build the consistent picture of the the table as it was when the cursor was opened. To avoid this problem, try to use a flag in the table describing what rows are not updated and then close + re-open the cursor every 1000 rows or so. Why I don't get the "No rows selected" if I issue select max(empno) from emp where deptno = -10 ? There are no emps with deptno -10. The GROUP functions (min/max/avg...) will ALWAYS fetch at least one row unless you specify a group by clause. How can I remove duplicates from my table ? To find duplicate keys from a table tx: select key, count(key) no_of_duplicates from tx group by key having count(key) > 1; To remove duplicates from table tx when IT DOES NOT MATTER WHICH ONE IS SAVED: delete from tx where key not in (select min(key) from tx group by key); Of course you can choose which one to save in the subselect. Q: A: How to get the Operating system userid ? select s.username from v$session s, v$process p where s.paddr = p.addr and s.username = user This works when you don't use SQL*Net connections. Q: A: How to find the SID of the database in Forms/Plus etc ? "Select value from sys.v$parameter where name ='db_name';" Remember to grant select on that table to public using user SYS.

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Ttitle do not show up if no rows are selected in a select statement. How to get around that. A: You have to select something that will definitely succed and then do a

noprint on that. Below is the relevent workaround. ttitle center 'testing' column x noprint select 'x' x from dual; select * from dept where deptno=77; / the result : testing no rows selected Q: A: How to supress the date and page nos. from appearing . By default the date and the time will appear if you just do a ttitle and do not qualify it. Eg. SQL> ttitle 'test' SQL> select * from dual; Output: September 3, 1992 page 1 If you do not want date and page no.qualify the ttitle with something (any of the clauses mentioned in pp 4-18 of sqlplus ref manual). eg. SQL> ttitle left 'test' SQL> select * from dual; test D X Q: A: How to show the time difference between two date columns ? select floor((date1-date2)*24*60*60)/3600) || ' HOURS ' || floor((((date1-date2)*24*60*60) floor(((date1-date2)*24*60*60)/3600)*3600)/60) || ' MINUTES ' || round((((date1-date2)*24*60*60) floor(((date1-date2)*24*60*60)/3600)*3600 (floor((((date1-date2)*24*60*60) floor(((date1-date2)*24*60*60)/3600)*3600)/60)*60))) || ' SECS ' timediff from ... For Add_months() function if the first parameter is the last day of a a month (i.e. '28-feb-91'), the result will be the last day of the month (i.e. '31-aug-91'); the 27th of feb, of course, returns the 27th of aug. Is there any way to override this rule so that add_months('28-feb-91',6) will return '28-AUG-91'? select to_date(add_months(c1-1,6))+1 alias_col_name from Table; where c1 is a date col holding the value 28-FEB-91. I tried to use UNION but I got ORA-01789: query block has incorrect number of result columns. I have only some of the columns in the other table. You have to define the missing columns. Note the number of spaces between the single quotes. - character: select ' ', ename from foo -- One space between the single quotes union

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select charcol, ename from table; - number: select 0, ename from foo union select numericcol, ename from table - date: select to_date(''), ename from foo --No space between the single quotes union select datecol, ename from table Q: A: How do you find the days between two dates excluding weekends (Saturdays and Sundays)? This is a SQL SELECT statement that subtracts two dates and gives you the number of days between them, excluding weekends. SELECT (TRUNC(enddate,'D') - TRUNC(begdate+6,'D')) - (((TRUNC(enddate,'D') - TRUNC(begdate+6,'D'))/7)*2) + DECODE(TO_NUMBER(TO_CHAR(enddate,'D')),3,1,4,2,5,3,6,4,7,5,0) + LEAST(7-DECODE)(TO_NUMBER(TO_CHAR(begdate,'D')),1,7, TO_NUMBER(TO_CHAR(begdate,'D'))),5) DAYS FROM datetable Q. A. I have a number field which holds time in seconds. How can I display this using an oracle time format? select to_char(trunc(sysdate)+(time_field/86400),'HH:MI:SS') from time_table; *86400 is the number of seconds in a day