How to loop through a delimited list in Oracle PLSQL - oracle

Question

I am working on an Oracle procedure that calls another procedure within it. One of my parameters (parm1) can contain one or more values in a comma separated list. How can I loop through these values to pass them one at a time to another procedure?
Here is an example of what I would like it to do:
When Parm1 = 123,312
callProcedure2(123)
callProcedure2(321)
-or-
When Parm1 123
callProcedure2(123)
I think this can be accomplished using a loop but I can't figure out how to get it to use each value as a separated call within the loop.
Any help would be appreciated!
Thanks!

Answer 1

CURSOR V_CUR IS
select regexp_substr(Parm1 ,'[^,]+', 1, level) As str from dual
connect by regexp_substr(Parm1, '[^,]+', 1, level) is not null;
This curor will give you result like this
123
321
Now iterate the cursor and call the procedure in loop.
For i IN V_CUR
LOOP
callProdcedure2(i.str);
END LOOP;

Answer 2

Just loop through substrings:
declare
parm1 varchar2(1000) := '123,234,345,456,567,789,890';
vStartIdx binary_integer;
vEndIdx binary_integer;
vCurValue varchar2(1000);
begin
vStartIdx := 0;
vEndIdx := instr(parm1, ',');
while(vEndIdx > 0) loop
vCurValue := substr(parm1, vStartIdx+1, vEndIdx - vStartIdx - 1);
-- call proc here
dbms_output.put_line('->'||vCurValue||'<-');
vStartIdx := vEndIdx;
vEndIdx := instr(parm1, ',', vStartIdx + 1);
end loop;
-- Call proc here for last part (or in case of single element)
vCurValue := substr(parm1, vStartIdx+1);
dbms_output.put_line('->'||vCurValue||'<-');
end;

Answer 3

There is a utility procedure COMMA_TO_TABLE and array type DBMS_UTILITY.UNCL_ARRAY dedicated for this task. Since Oracle 10g.
It is well document here.
Here is a sample solution:
SET SERVEROUTPUT ON
DECLARE
csvListElm VARCHAR2(4000) := 'elm1, elm2,elm3 ,elm4 , elm5';
csvListTable DBMS_UTILITY.UNCL_ARRAY;
csvListLen BINARY_INTEGER;
currTableName VARCHAR2(222);
BEGIN
DBMS_UTILITY.COMMA_TO_TABLE(csvListElm, csvListLen, csvListTable);
FOR csvElm IN 1..(csvListTable.COUNT - 1) LOOP
dbms_output.put_line('-- CSV element : <'||csvListTable(csvElm)||'>');
dbms_output.put_line('-- Trimmed CSV element: <'||trim(csvListTable(csvElm))||'>');
END LOOP;
END;
/
Sample output:
-- CSV element : <elm1>;
-- Trimmed CSV element: <elm1>;
-- CSV element : < elm2>;
-- Trimmed CSV element: <elm2>;
-- CSV element : <elm3 >;
-- Trimmed CSV element: <elm3>;
-- CSV element : <elm4 >;
-- Trimmed CSV element: <elm4>;
-- CSV element : < elm5>;
-- Trimmed CSV element: <elm5>;

Answer 4

It is possible to use a function that you can use in a for loop (without regexp for ThinkJet):
Create a type and function
CREATE OR REPLACE TYPE t_my_list AS TABLE OF VARCHAR2(100);
CREATE OR REPLACE
FUNCTION cto_table(p_sep in Varchar2, p_list IN VARCHAR2)
RETURN t_my_list
AS
l_string VARCHAR2(32767) := p_list || p_sep;
l_sep_index PLS_INTEGER;
l_index PLS_INTEGER := 1;
l_tab t_my_list := t_my_list();
BEGIN
LOOP
l_sep_index := INSTR(l_string, p_sep, l_index);
EXIT
WHEN l_sep_index = 0;
l_tab.EXTEND;
l_tab(l_tab.COUNT) := TRIM(SUBSTR(l_string,l_index,l_sep_index - l_index));
l_index := l_sep_index + 1;
END LOOP;
RETURN l_tab;
END cto_table;
/
Then how to call it in the for loop:
DECLARE
parm1 varchar2(4000) := '123,234,345,456,567,789,890';
BEGIN
FOR x IN (select * from (table(cto_table(',', parm1)) ) )
LOOP
dbms_output.put_line('callProdcedure2 called with ' || x.COLUMN_VALUE);
callProdcedure2(x.COLUMN_VALUE);
END LOOP;
END;
/
Notice the default name COLUMN_VALUE given by Oracle, which is necessary for the use I want to make of the result.
Result as expected:
callProdcedure2 called with 123
callProdcedure2 called with 234
...