Oracle adding a subquery in a CTE - oracle

Question

I have the following setup, which works fine and generates output as expected.
I'm trying to add the locations subquery into the CTE so my output will have a random location_id for each row.
The subquery is straight forward and should work but I am getting syntax errors when I try to place it into the 'data's CTE. I was hoping someone could help me out.
CREATE TABLE employees(
employee_id NUMBER(6),
emp_name VARCHAR2(30)
);
INSERT INTO employees(
employee_id,
emp_name
) VALUES
(1, 'John Doe');
INSERT INTO employees(
employee_id,
emp_name
) VALUES
(2, 'Jane Smith');
INSERT INTO employees(
employee_id,
emp_name
) VALUES
(3, 'Mike Jones');
CREATE TABLE locations AS
SELECT level AS location_id,
'Door ' || level AS location_name
FROM dual
CONNECT BY level <=
with rws as (
select level rn from dual connect by level <= 5 ),
data as ( select e.*,round (dbms_random.value(1,5)
) n from employees e)
select employee_id,
emp_name,
trunc (sysdate) + dbms_random.value (0, 5) AS random_date
from rws
join data d on rn <= n
order by employee_id;
-- trying to make this work
with rws as ( select level rn from dual connect by level <= 5 ),
data as ( select e.*, loc.location_id = (
select location_id
from locations order by dbms_random.value()
fetch first 1 row only
),
round (dbms_random.value(1,5)
) n from employees e )
select employee_id,
emp_name,
trunc (sysdate) + dbms_random.value (0, 5) AS random_date
from rws
join data d on rn <= n
order by employee_id;

Answer 1

You need to alias the subquery column expression, rather than trying to assign it to a [variable] name. So instead of this:
with rws as ( select level rn from dual connect by level <= 5 ),
data as ( select e.*, loc.location_id = (
select location_id
from locations order by dbms_random.value()
fetch first 1 row only
),
round (dbms_random.value(1,5)
) n from employees e )
you would do this:
with rws as (
select level rn
from dual
connect by level <= 5
),
data as (
select e.*,
(
select location_id
from locations
order by dbms_random.value()
fetch first 1 row only
) as location_id,
round (dbms_random.value(1,5)) as n
from employees e
)
db<>fiddle
But yes, you'll get the same location_id for each row, which probably isn't what you want.
There are probably better ways to avoid it (or to approach whatever you're actually trying to achieve) but one option is to force the subquery to be correlated by adding something like:
where location_id != -1 * e.employee_id
db<>fiddle
although that might be expensive. It's probably worth asking a new question about that specific aspect.
I am getting the same location_id for every employee_id, which I don't want either.
The subquery is in the wrong place then; move it to the main query, and correlate against both ID and n:
with rws as (
select level rn
from dual
connect by level <= 5
),
data as (
select e.*,
round (dbms_random.value(1,5)) as n
from employees e
)
select d.employee_id,
d.emp_name,
(
select location_id
from locations
where location_id != -1 * d.employee_id * d.n
order by dbms_random.value()
fetch first 1 row only
) as location_id,
trunc (sysdate) + dbms_random.value (0, 5) AS random_date
from rws r
join data d on r.rn <= d.n
order by d.employee_id;
db<>fiddle
Or move the location part to a new CTE, I suppose, with its own row number; and join that on one of your other generated values.