And it would have been to standards and widespread too…..

But I understand the problem. The -quotes started to appear in C and database existed befor that…

nomike

E.g.

var v_where_clause VARCHAR2(1024);

ACCEPT a_Where PROMPT ‘ Enter a valid WHERE clause: ‘

BEGIN – :v_where_clause := Q’[&a_Where]‘; :v_where_clause := RTRIM(:v_where_clause, ‘ ;’); IF LTRIM(UPPER(:v_where_clause)) LIKE ‘WHERE%’ THEN — Clip the ‘Where’ clause from the point after the ‘WHERE ‘ (if included) :v_where_clause := SUBSTR(:v_where_clause, INSTR(UPPER(:v_where_clause), ‘WHERE ‘) + 6); END IF; – END; /

Prior to this, the where clause had to use double-quotes (or pairs of single-quotes) around literals, as I couldn’t ‘capture’ the value in a variable.

The whole script follows. Needless to say this is less useful with modern IDE tools, but in our Live environment it has proved invaluabl.

SET ECHO OFF

PROMPT vL2007/09/05.1 PROMPT 1) When prompted, enter the name of the TABLE for selection. PROMPT 2) You may then add a simple WHERE clause, or to default. PROMPT 3) You may then add a simple ORDER BY clause, or to default. PROMPT 4) Note: DATE values should use the format DD-MON-YYYY. PROMPT

SET HEADING OFF FEEDBACK OFF VERIFY OFF NUMWIDTH 12 TRIMSPOOL ON PAGESIZE 0 LINESIZE 200

ALTER SESSION SET NLS_DATE_FORMAT = ‘DD-MON-YYYY’;

var v_table_name VARCHAR2(100); var v_owner VARCHAR2(30); var v_where_clause VARCHAR2(1024); var v_order_by VARCHAR2(1024); var v_dot_posn NUMBER;

ACCEPT a_Tab PROMPT ‘ Enter the name of the required TABLE: ‘ ACCEPT a_Where PROMPT ‘ Enter a valid WHERE clause: ‘ ACCEPT a_Order PROMPT ‘ Enter a valid ORDER BY clause: ‘

BEGIN – :v_table_name := NVL(‘&a_Tab’, ‘Dual’); :v_dot_posn := INSTR(:v_table_name, ‘.’); – IF NVL(:v_dot_posn, 0) > 0 THEN :v_owner := SUBSTR(:v_table_name, 1, (:v_dot_posn – 1)); :v_table_name := SUBSTR(:v_table_name, (:v_dot_posn + 1)); ELSE :v_owner := USER; — or whatever defaulkt is required END IF; – :v_where_clause := Q’[&a_Where]‘; :v_where_clause := RTRIM(:v_where_clause, ‘ ;’); IF LTRIM(UPPER(:v_where_clause)) LIKE ‘WHERE%’ THEN — Clip the ‘Where’ clause from the point after the ‘WHERE ‘ (if included) :v_where_clause := SUBSTR(:v_where_clause, INSTR(UPPER(:v_where_clause), ‘WHERE ‘) + 6); END IF; – :v_order_by := Q’[&a_Order]‘; :v_order_by := RTRIM(:v_order_by, ‘ ;’); IF LTRIM(UPPER(:v_order_by)) LIKE ‘ORDER %BY %’ THEN — Clip the ‘Order By’ clause from the point after the ‘ BY ‘ (if included) :v_order_by := SUBSTR(:v_order_by, INSTR(UPPER(:v_order_by), ‘ BY ‘) + 4); END IF; – END; /

SET TERMOUT OFF

SPOOL TabSpool.sql

SELECT ‘SET ECHO OFF’ || CHR(10) || ‘SET HEADING OFF FEEDBACK OFF PAGESIZE 0′ || CHR(10) || ‘SET LINESIZE 70 ARRAYSIZE 5′ || CHR(10) || ‘ALTER SESSION ENABLE PARALLEL DML;’ || CHR(10) || ‘PROMPT’ FROM Dual;

SELECT ‘SELECT /*+ APPEND PARALLEL(‘ || :v_table_name || ‘, 7) */’ FROM Dual;

SELECT ”” || LPAD(RPAD(column_name, 30), 35) || ‘= [' || ''' || ' || column_name || ' || '']”,’ FROM all_tab_columns WHERE table_name = UPPER(:v_table_name) AND data_type IN (‘CHAR’, ‘VARCHAR2′, ‘NUMBER’, ‘DATE’) AND owner = UPPER(:v_owner) ORDER BY column_id ASC;

SELECT ”’ ” FROM ‘ || :v_owner || ‘.’ || :v_table_name || ‘ WHERE ‘ || NVL(:v_where_clause, ’1=1′) || DECODE(:v_order_by, NULL, NULL, ‘ ORDER BY ‘ || :v_order_by) || ‘;’ FROM Dual;

SELECT ‘SELECT CHR(32) FROM Dual;’ FROM Dual;

SELECT ‘SET HEADING ON FEEDBACK ON PAGESIZE 100 LINESIZE 120 ECHO ON ‘ || RPAD(‘ ‘,60) FROM Dual;

SPOOL OFF

UNDEFINE a_Tab UNDEFINE a_Where UNDEFINE a_Order

SET HEADING ON FEEDBACK ON VERIFY ON ARRAYSIZE 20 TRIMSPOOL OFF PAGESIZE 100 LINESIZE 120 TERMOUT ON ECHO ON

START TabSpool.sql

SET ECHO OFF

:

Our databases are all 10g but our Oracle client software ranges from 8.0 through to 10g R2. The guy from Oracle support said something along the lines of ” … as you know the parser used by the database matches the version of the oracle client used to connect.”

As we don’t actually use any 9i clients we couldn’t provide a business case for raising a bug.

SQL> connect hr/hr
Connected.
SQL> SELECT q'<'Data, he said, 'Make it so.'>'
  2   FROM DUAL
  3  /

Q'<'DATA,HESAID,'MAKEITSO.'>'
-----------------------------
'Data, he said, 'Make it so.'

However, it failed when I ran it in SQL Navigator.

SELECT q’<’Data, he said, ‘Make it so.’>’ FROM DUAL;