Does Oracle implicit conversion depend on joined tables or views - oracle

Question

I've faced with a weird problem now. The query itself is huge so I'm not going to post it here (I could post however in case someone needs to see). Now I have a table ,TABLE1, with a CHAR(1) column, COL1. This table column is queried as part of my query. When I filter the recordset for this column I say:
WHERE TAB1.COL1=1
This way the query runs and returns a very big resultset. I've recently updated one of the subqueries to speed up the query. But after this when I write WHERE TAB1.COL1=1 it does not return anything, but if I change it to WHERE TAB1.COL1='1' it gives me the records I need. Notice the WHERE clause with quotes and w/o them. So to make it more clear, before updating one of the sub-queries I did not have to put quotes to check against COL1 value, but after updating I have to. What feature of Oracle is it that I'm not aware of?
EDIT: I'm posting the tw versions of the query in case someone might find it useful
Version 1:
SELECT p.ssn,
pss.pin,
pd.doc_number,
p.surname,
p.name,
p.patronymic,
to_number(p.sex, '9') as sex,
citiz_c.short_name citizenship,
p.birth_place,
p.birth_day as birth_date,
coun_c.short_name as country,
di.name as leg_city,
trim( pa.settlement
|| ' '
|| pa.street) AS leg_street,
pd.issue_date,
pd.issuing_body,
irs.irn,
irs.tpn,
irs.reg_office,
to_number(irs.insurer_type, '9') as insurer_type,
TO_CHAR(sa.REG_CODE)
||CONVERT_INT_TO_DOUBLE_LETTER(TO_NUMBER(SUBSTR(TO_CHAR(sa.DOSSIER_NR, '0999999'), 2, 3)))
||SUBSTR(TO_CHAR(sa.DOSSIER_NR, '0999999'), 5, 4) CONVERTED_SSN_DOSSIER_NR,
fa.snr
FROM
(SELECT pss_t.pin,
pss_t.ssn
FROM EHDIS_INSURANCE.pin_ssn_status pss_t
WHERE pss_t.difference_status < 5
) pss
INNER JOIN SSPF_CENTRE.file_archive fa
ON fa.ssn = pss.ssn
INNER JOIN SSPF_CENTRE.persons p
ON p.ssn = fa.ssn
INNER JOIN
(SELECT pd_2.ssn,
pd_2.type,
pd_2.series,
pd_2.doc_number,
pd_2.issue_date,
pd_2.issuing_body
FROM
--The changed subquery starts here
(SELECT ssn,
MIN(type) AS type
FROM SSPF_CENTRE.person_documents
GROUP BY ssn
) pd_1
INNER JOIN SSPF_CENTRE.person_documents pd_2
ON pd_2.type = pd_1.type
AND pd_2.ssn = pd_1.ssn
) pd
--The changed subquery ends here
ON pd.ssn = p.ssn
INNER JOIN SSPF_CENTRE.ssn_archive sa
ON p.ssn = sa.ssn
INNER JOIN SSPF_CENTRE.person_addresses pa
ON p.ssn = pa.ssn
INNER JOIN
(SELECT i_t.irn,
irs_t.ssn,
i_t.tpn,
i_t.reg_office,
(
CASE i_t.insurer_type
WHEN '4'
THEN '1'
ELSE i_t.insurer_type
END) AS insurer_type
FROM sspf_centre.irn_registered_ssn irs_t
INNER JOIN SSPF_CENTRE.insurers i_t
ON i_t.irn = irs_t.new_irn
OR i_t.old_irn = irs_t.old_irn
WHERE irs_t.is_registration IS NOT NULL
AND i_t.is_real IS NOT NULL
) irs ON irs.ssn = p.ssn
LEFT OUTER JOIN SSPF_CENTRE.districts di
ON di.code = pa.city
LEFT OUTER JOIN SSPF_CENTRE.countries citiz_c
ON p.citizenship = citiz_c.numeric_code
LEFT OUTER JOIN SSPF_CENTRE.countries coun_c
ON pa.country_code = coun_c.numeric_code
WHERE pa.address_flag = '1'--Here's the column value with quotes
AND fa.form_type = 'Q3';
And Version 2:
SELECT p.ssn,
pss.pin,
pd.doc_number,
p.surname,
p.name,
p.patronymic,
to_number(p.sex, '9') as sex,
citiz_c.short_name citizenship,
p.birth_place,
p.birth_day as birth_date,
coun_c.short_name as country,
di.name as leg_city,
trim( pa.settlement
|| ' '
|| pa.street) AS leg_street,
pd.issue_date,
pd.issuing_body,
irs.irn,
irs.tpn,
irs.reg_office,
to_number(irs.insurer_type, '9') as insurer_type,
TO_CHAR(sa.REG_CODE)
||CONVERT_INT_TO_DOUBLE_LETTER(TO_NUMBER(SUBSTR(TO_CHAR(sa.DOSSIER_NR, '0999999'), 2, 3)))
||SUBSTR(TO_CHAR(sa.DOSSIER_NR, '0999999'), 5, 4) CONVERTED_SSN_DOSSIER_NR,
fa.snr
FROM
(SELECT pss_t.pin,
pss_t.ssn
FROM EHDIS_INSURANCE.pin_ssn_status pss_t
WHERE pss_t.difference_status < 5
) pss
INNER JOIN SSPF_CENTRE.file_archive fa
ON fa.ssn = pss.ssn
INNER JOIN SSPF_CENTRE.persons p
ON p.ssn = fa.ssn
INNER JOIN
--The changed subquery starts here
(SELECT ssn,
type,
series,
doc_number,
issue_date,
issuing_body
FROM
(SELECT ssn,
type,
series,
doc_number,
issue_date,
issuing_body,
ROW_NUMBER() OVER (partition BY ssn order by type) rn
FROM SSPF_CENTRE.person_documents
)
WHERE rn = 1
) pd --
--The changed subquery ends here
ON pd.ssn = p.ssn
INNER JOIN SSPF_CENTRE.ssn_archive sa
ON p.ssn = sa.ssn
INNER JOIN SSPF_CENTRE.person_addresses pa
ON p.ssn = pa.ssn
INNER JOIN
(SELECT i_t.irn,
irs_t.ssn,
i_t.tpn,
i_t.reg_office,
(
CASE i_t.insurer_type
WHEN '4'
THEN '1'
ELSE i_t.insurer_type
END) AS insurer_type
FROM sspf_centre.irn_registered_ssn irs_t
INNER JOIN SSPF_CENTRE.insurers i_t
ON i_t.irn = irs_t.new_irn
OR i_t.old_irn = irs_t.old_irn
WHERE irs_t.is_registration IS NOT NULL
AND i_t.is_real IS NOT NULL
) irs ON irs.ssn = p.ssn
LEFT OUTER JOIN SSPF_CENTRE.districts di
ON di.code = pa.city
LEFT OUTER JOIN SSPF_CENTRE.countries citiz_c
ON p.citizenship = citiz_c.numeric_code
LEFT OUTER JOIN SSPF_CENTRE.countries coun_c
ON pa.country_code = coun_c.numeric_code
WHERE pa.address_flag = 1--Here's the column value without quotes
AND fa.form_type = 'Q3';
I've put separating comments for the changed subqueries and the WHERE clause in both queries. Both versions of the subqueries return the same result, one of them is just slower, which is why I decided to update it.

Answer 1

With the most simplistic example I can't reproduce your problem on 11.2.0.3.0 or 11.2.0.1.0.
SQL> create table tmp_test ( a char(1) );
Table created.
SQL> insert into tmp_test values ('1');
1 row created.
SQL> select *
2 from tmp_test
3 where a = 1;
A
-
1
If I then insert a non-numeric value into the table I can confirm Chris' comment "that Oracle will rewrite tab1.col1 = 1 to to_number(tab1.col1) = 1", which implies that you only have numeric characters in the column.
SQL> insert into tmp_test values ('a');
1 row created.
SQL> select *
2 from tmp_test
3 where a = 1;
ERROR:
ORA-01722: invalid number
no rows selected
If you're interested in tracking this down you should gradually reduce the complexity of the query until you have found a minimal, reproducible, example. Oracle can pre-compute a conversion to be used in a JOIN, which as your query is complex seems like a possible explanation of what's happening.
Oracle explicitly recommends against using implicit conversion so it's wiser not to use it at all; as you're finding out. For a start there's no guarantees that your indexes will be used correctly.
Oracle recommends that you specify explicit conversions, rather than rely on implicit or automatic conversions, for these reasons:
SQL statements are easier to understand when you use explicit data type conversion functions.
Implicit data type conversion can have a negative impact on performance, especially if the data type of a column value is converted to that of a constant rather than the other way around.
Implicit conversion depends on the context in which it occurs and may not work the same way in every case. For example, implicit conversion from a datetime value to a VARCHAR2 value may return an unexpected year depending on the value of the NLS_DATE_FORMAT
parameter.
Algorithms for implicit conversion are subject to change across software releases and among Oracle products. Behavior of explicit conversions is more predictable.
If you do only have numeric characters in the column I would highly recommend changing this to a NUMBER(1) column and I would always recommend explicit conversion to avoid a lot of pain in the longer run.

Answer 2

It's hard to tell without the actual query. What I would expect is that TAB1.COL1 is in some way different before and after the refactoring.
Candidates differences are Number vs. CHAR(1) vs. CHAR(x>1) vs VARCHAR2
It is easy to introduce differences like this with subqueries where you join two tables which have different types in the join column and you return different columns in your subquery.
To hunt that issue down you might want to check the exact datatypes of your query. Not sure how to do that right now .. but an idea would be to put it in a view and use sqlplus desc on it.