Oracle - Check constraint maximum number of x words - oracle

I want to add a check constraint that checks whether a field has a maximum number of X white spaces " ". I couldn't find anything about it on the oracle website. Anybody knows whether that's possible? Maybe through a PL/SQL function?

If you're defining a word by counting the number of spaces, then you could probably do something like this:
constraint check_ws_count check (length(regexp_replace(field,'[^ ]','')) <= 99)
However, this doesn't take into account double spacing, etc. Maybe you can tweak it to be more robust, but it doesn't seem like a good idea!
EDIT Using regexp_count and taking multiple spacing into account:
constraint check_ws_count check (regexp_count(field, '\s+') <= 99)

Probably something like this should do the trick:
check (length(field) - length(replace(field, ' ', '')) <= 99)
This approach will also work for those stuck on Oracle 9i or older databases without the regexp_ family of functions.

Related

Returning the Maximum of Date1 and Date2 in Cognos 10.2

At my company we've recently moved from SSRS to a Cognos-based Reporting System, I don't have much experience with Cognos as a whole and am running into some issues that seem trivially easy to fix but I am struggling so far.
In our DB we segregate two kinds of contact date information [Date Emailed] and [Date Called], I'm attempting to combine both to get a [Date Contacted] field returned.
Is there a way for me in Cognos report builder to find the max of both of these data items?
I would have expected some kind of "c = MAX(a,b)" function like the below to be available but from what I've seen, apparently not.
[Date Contacted] = MAX([Date Emailed], [Date Called])
Also, we have no access to modify SQL or any Cognos related part except the Report Builder which makes this all the more fun.
I feel like the answer will be building a CASE statement to do this, but I'd rather stay away from CASE if I can.
Thanks,
Blu
I wonder if you could use _days_between to determine which is the newer date.
Something like this:
Case
(_days_between (X, Y) > 0 )
then (x)
// or Y; I can't remember whether the value returned is a negative or positive if the first parameter is greater than the second. The expression editor's help will say. Anyway, this is just to point you in a direction rather than me coming down from Mount Sinai.
case
(_days_between (X, Y) > 0 )
then
(x) // or Y;
Else (x or y but it doesn't matter as there's no difference )

Format statement with unknown columns

I am attempting to use fortran to write out a comma-delimited file for import into another commercial package. The issue is that I have an unknown number of data columns. My output needs to look like this:
a_string,a_float,a_different_float,float_array_elem1,float_array_elem2,...,float_array_elemn
which would result in something that might look like this:
L1080,546876.23,4325678.21,300.2,150.125,...,0.125
L1090,563245.1,2356345.21,27.1245,...,0.00983
I have three issues. One, I would prefer the elements to be tightly grouped (variable column width), two, I do not know how to define a variable number of array elements in the format statement, and three, the array elements can span a large range--maybe 12 orders of magnitude. The following code conceptually does what I want, but the variable 'n' and the lack of column-width definition throws an error (of course):
WRITE(50,900) linenames(ii),loc(ii,1:2),recon(ii,1:n)
900 FORMAT(A,',',F,',',F,n(',',F))
(I should note that n is fixed at run-time.) The write statement does what I want it to when I do WRITE(50,*), except that it's width-delimited.
I think this thread almost answered my question, but I got quite confused: SO. Right now I have a shell script with awk fixing the issue, but that solution is...inelegant. I could do some manipulation to make the output a string, and then just write it, but I would rather like to avoid that option if at all possible.
I'm doing this in Fortran 90 but I like to try to keep my code as backwards-compatible as possible.
the format close to what you want is f0.3, this will give no spaces and a fixed number of decimal places. I think if you want to also lop off trailing zeros you'll need to do a good bit of work.
The 'n' in your write statement can be larger than the number of data values, so one (old school) approach is to put a big number there, eg 100000. Modern fortran does have some syntax to specify indefinite repeat, i'm sure someone will offer that up.
----edit
the unlimited repeat is as you might guess an asterisk..and is evideltly "brand new" in f2008
In order to make sure that no space occurs between the entries in your line, you can write them separately in character variables and then print them out using theadjustl() function in fortran:
program csv
implicit none
integer, parameter :: dp = kind(1.0d0)
integer, parameter :: nn = 3
real(dp), parameter :: floatarray(nn) = [ -1.0_dp, -2.0_dp, -3.0_dp ]
integer :: ii
character(30) :: buffer(nn+2), myformat
! Create format string with appropriate number of fields.
write(myformat, "(A,I0,A)") "(A,", nn + 2, "(',',A))"
! You should execute the following lines in a loop for every line you want to output
write(buffer(1), "(F20.2)") 1.0_dp ! a_float
write(buffer(2), "(F20.2)") 2.0_dp ! a_different_float
do ii = 1, nn
write(buffer(2+ii), "(F20.3)") floatarray(ii)
end do
write(*, myformat) "a_string", (trim(adjustl(buffer(ii))), ii = 1, nn + 2)
end program csv
The demonstration above is only for one output line, but you can easily write a loop around the appropriate block to execute it for all your output lines. Also, you can choose different numerical format for the different entries, if you wish.

Ruby regular expression for asterisks/underscore to strong/em?

As part of a chat app I'm writing, I need to use regular expressions to match asterisks and underscores in chat messages and turn them into <strong> and <em> tags. Since I'm terrible with regex, I'm really stuck here. Ideally, we would have it set up such that:
One to three words, but not more, can be marked for strong/em.
Patterns such as "un*believ*able" would be matched.
Only one or the other (strong OR em) work within one line.
The above parameters are in order of importance, with only #1 being utterly necessary - the others are just prettiness. The closest I came to anything that worked was:
text = text.sub(/\*([(0-9a-zA-Z).*])\*/,'<b>\1<\/b>')
text = text.sub(/_([(0-9a-zA-Z).*])_/,'<i>\1<\/i>')
But it obviously doesn't work with any of our params.
It's odd that there's not an example of something similar already out there, given the popularity of using asterisks for bold and whatnot. If there is, I couldn't find it outside of plugins/gems (which won't work for this instance, as I really only need it in in one place in my model). Any help would be appreciated.
This should help you finish what you are doing:
sub(/\*(.*)\*/,'<b>\1</b>')
sub(/_(.*)_/,'<i>\1</i>')
Firstly, your criteria are a little strange, but, okay...
It seems that a possible algorithm for this would be to find the number of matches in a message, count them to see if there are less than 4, and then try to perform one set of substitutions.
strong_regexp = /\*([^\*]*)\*/
em_regexp = /_([^_]*)_/
def process(input)
if input ~= strong_regexp && input.match(strong_regexp).size < 4
input.sub strong_regexp, "<b>\1<\b>"
elsif input ~= em_regexp && intput.match(em_regexp).size < 4
input.sub em_regexp, "<i>\1<\i>"
end
end
Your specifications aren't entirely clear, but if you understand this, you can tweak it yourself.

ORA-00907 Error when using Analytic Function in a Query (PS/Query, Peopletools 8.51.12)

Query's throwing an ORA-00907 Error when I try to paste a list of values into a criteria.
Background: I'm not a developer, I'm just an end user that's studied enough to where I can write queries using PS/Query within Peoplesoft,
for my company's implementation. I work with Peoplesoft's FSCM module
(Financials and Supply Chain Management), currently on Version FSCM
8.90.08.024, using I think Oracle 11g as the base database.
I'm mostly self-taught, and the technical experts we have are busy
with database/application stuff, or they aren't familiar with my
section's specific data needs.
I should point out that I'm unable to directly write SQL statements to
Query the database. I have to use a built-in program called "PS/Query"
(also known as Query Manager) with a GUI that writes the SQL for you
and saves it as a Query that you can run to the database to extract
data. This is relevant to my question only in that:
1. I cannot create or alter views/tables
2. I cannot perform any type of SQL Statement except "SELECT"
3. I can embed PL/SQL, MetaSQL and plain SQL into Expressions
4. At this point, Query Manager is the only option I have.
PS/Query is my only experience with SQL so far, aside from Oracle's
documentation and sites like this. From my research, it's considered
extremely confining by "actual" SQL programmers.The restrictions on it
require you to do things in a manner that violates what seem to be
best practices of SQL coding.
Query Request: I have a query I've been requested to write that pulls out spend (on Vouchers and POs) against certain system-defined
Category Codes. What I'm trying to do is pull in Voucher IDs, sum the
merchandise amounts on them by Vendor and Category Code, and display
the results. Or in other words, for every unique combination of
Vendor/Category, add up all the Voucher Amounts that have that
Vendor/Category combination.
Using the SUM (Fieldname) OVER (PARTITION BY fieldname, fieldname)
syntax.
So the end result should look something like...
Code Vendor Amount
123-45 Acme $5000.00
123-45 Apple $4200.00
123-46 Acme $750.00
With that said, here's the SQL that Query Manager is displaying to get the result set I showed above:
SELECT DISTINCT D.CATEGORY_CD, D.TN_DESCR1000, C.VENDOR_ID, E.NAME1, SUM ( A.MERCH_AMT_VCHR) OVER (PARTITION BY D.CATEGORY_CD, C.VENDOR_ID),E.SETID,E.VENDOR_ID
FROM PS_PO_LINE_MATCHED A, PS_PO_LINE B, PS_PO_HDR C, PS_ITM_CAT_TBL D, PS_VENDOR E, PS_PYMNT_VCHR_XREF F
WHERE A.BUSINESS_UNIT = B.BUSINESS_UNIT
AND A.PO_ID = B.PO_ID
AND A.LINE_NBR = B.LINE_NBR
AND B.BUSINESS_UNIT = C.BUSINESS_UNIT
AND B.PO_ID = C.PO_ID
AND D.CATEGORY_ID = B.CATEGORY_ID
AND D.EFFDT =
(SELECT MAX(D_ED.EFFDT) FROM PS_ITM_CAT_TBL D_ED
WHERE D.SETID = D_ED.SETID
AND D.CATEGORY_TYPE = D_ED.CATEGORY_TYPE
AND D.CATEGORY_CD = D_ED.CATEGORY_CD
AND D.CATEGORY_ID = D_ED.CATEGORY_ID
AND D_ED.EFFDT <= SYSDATE)
AND ( F.SCHEDULED_PAY_DT >= TO_DATE('2010-07-01','YYYY-MM-DD')
AND F.SCHEDULED_PAY_DT <= TO_DATE('2011-06-30','YYYY-MM-DD'))
AND D.CATEGORY_CD LIKE :1
AND E.VENDOR_ID = C.VENDOR_ID
AND A.BUSINESS_UNIT = F.BUSINESS_UNIT
AND A.VOUCHER_ID = F.VOUCHER_ID
ORDER BY 1
Underlying Issue: This works fine, but it can only prompt on one
Category Code at a time. Category Codes are 5 digits, a 3-digit
"Class" followed by a dash and then a 2-digit "subclass. I have a list
of 375 Category Codes I need to get this Query result for.
I've set up a prompt on this version that allows entry of a Wildcard
(So 123-%%), but that's still about a hundred separate runs of the
Query. Query Manager allows use of an "In List" expression type in
Criteria, but it requires you to manually enter each entry in the
list.
I'm trying to set it up to where I can paste a plaintext copy of the
Code list into an Expression, with proper quotes/commas, and have it
evaluate that to give me a combined list of all the NIGP codes
specified. The Prompt field created by Query Manager doesn't allow
pasting of lists (as far as I know).
Attempted Solution: I viewed the page at http://peoplesoft.ittoolbox.com/groups/technical-functional/peoplesoft-other-l/create-an-expression-in-psoft-90-query-to-paste-a-list-of-emplids-2808427 and I've tried some of the answers given there, but none of them worked. That page led to me trying this modified SQL (obviously the list of codes is truncated a bit for display here):
SELECT DISTINCT D.CATEGORY_CD, D.TN_DESCR1000, C.VENDOR_ID, E.NAME1, SUM ( A.MERCH_AMT_VCHR) OVER (PARTITION BY D.CATEGORY_CD, C.VENDOR_ID),E.SETID,E.VENDOR_ID
FROM PS_PO_LINE_MATCHED A, PS_PO_LINE B, PS_PO_HDR C, PS_ITM_CAT_TBL D, PS_VENDOR E, PS_PYMNT_VCHR_XREF F
WHERE A.BUSINESS_UNIT = B.BUSINESS_UNIT
AND A.PO_ID = B.PO_ID
AND A.LINE_NBR = B.LINE_NBR
AND B.BUSINESS_UNIT = C.BUSINESS_UNIT
AND B.PO_ID = C.PO_ID
AND D.CATEGORY_ID = B.CATEGORY_ID
AND D.EFFDT =
(SELECT MAX(D_ED.EFFDT) FROM PS_ITM_CAT_TBL D_ED
WHERE D.SETID = D_ED.SETID
AND D.CATEGORY_TYPE = D_ED.CATEGORY_TYPE
AND D.CATEGORY_CD = D_ED.CATEGORY_CD
AND D.CATEGORY_ID = D_ED.CATEGORY_ID
AND D_ED.EFFDT <= SYSDATE)
AND ( F.SCHEDULED_PAY_DT >= TO_DATE('2010-07-01','YYYY-MM-DD')
AND F.SCHEDULED_PAY_DT <= TO_DATE('2011-06-30','YYYY-MM-DD'))
AND D.CATEGORY_CD = '005-00' OR D.CATEGORY_CD IN ('015-00,'' '015-06,'' '015-10,'' '615-07'')
AND E.VENDOR_ID = C.VENDOR_ID
AND A.BUSINESS_UNIT = F.BUSINESS_UNIT
AND A.VOUCHER_ID = F.VOUCHER_ID
ORDER BY 1
And the SQL above is what's giving me the ORA-00907 error. Has anyone ran into this problem before? Massive wall of text, I know. My apologies. This is my first post here and I'm trying not to leave anything relevant out.
I've got the immediate problem that spurred this question fixed,but that request is just the tip of a very large iceberg, and at some point I need to figure out a way to be able to paste plaintext lists in as criteria using Query Manager, preferably in a way that plays nice with Analytic Grouping.
TL;DR version:
Using Peoplesoft Query Manager to do an Analytic SUM with grouping using OVER, PARTITION BY. When I try to paste a list into the criteria, it throws an ORA-00907 Error.
Any help would be greatly appreciated. Thanks!
Ok, after a bit more tweaking with this, I've found what I think is the underlying issue.
The error, in this case, is two-fold. Part of it was my fault (I didn't check for Peoplesoft mangling the quotation marks I pulled from Word), and part of it was the way Query Manager interprets some kinds of functions (you have to wrap some stuff in a Case When statement to get it to evaluate properly).
First, the "My Fault" part:
Every time I was pasting in my list of test NIGP Codes, I was doing it from a file I kept saved in Microsoft Word.
Which has the probably-handy "replace straight quotes with smart quotes" feature. Peoplesoft goes bonkers when its presented a "smart quote", and will display them as upside-down question marks (there's probably a technical term, I don't know it).
So when I'd test suggestions (such as fixing the quote/comma order as suggested by #Rene Nyffenegger and #WayneH) I'd start with my base test query, add in the expressions and test it, saving it as a separate query. If they didn't work, I'd go back to the base query. That way I could iterate changes and save potential tests as different versions.
My mistake was in not saving the different versions, leaving the application and going back in. It's when you save the query, leave the page, go somewhere else in Peoplesoft, then go back to open Query Manager that it actually shows you that it's doing the character conversion. You can't see it unless you do that. Even though Query Manager is doing it. So it was throwing a character Query Manager wouldn't recognize, but not showing me the character it wouldn't recognize.
I got a new work PC recently, and I've now disabled the Smart Quotes auto-replace for future use.
Second, the "Query Manager: part:
On the version of this that I got to work, I made use of wrapping the "IN" function inside a Case statement. I've found that a lot of SQL functions, when used "plain" (as I'd define them by just copy-pasting from Oracle's definitions pages and filling in the appropriate variables) tend to give PS/Query (Query Manager) heartburn. But if you wrap them inside a CASE...WHEN...END statement that evaluates the result of the function and then build a criteria that selects based on certain values of that result, the function will work and properly display a result.
So for an example, set up this expression (like in the example from #qyb2zm302). I'm using different codes from what was in my original example, but they work the same (they're all five-digit, character-typed codes consisting of three digits, a dash, then two digits)
Case when E.CATEGORY_CD IN
('375-15', '375-30', '375-54', '375-60', '380-30','938-63')
then 'true'
else 'false'
end
And then set a criteria:
AND
Case when E.CATEGORY_CD IN
('375-15', '375-30', '375-54', '375-60', '380-30','938-63')
then 'true'
else 'false'
end
= 'true'
It'll run to completion and return any rows that have that Category Code.
If you don't want to do that, you can do like in #qyb2zm302's Method 2. The only downside to that in Query Manager is that you have to enter them into individual rows in the "List", and if you can only copy-paste 25 at a time.
Wrapping it in a Case Statement lets you paste it directly into an Expression, which is far better for larger lists.
Solutions:
The above is the code I went with that worked. It's simplifying a bit for brevity's sake, but it works.
In List works through the native Query Manager option as long as you manually-populate the list
D.CATEGORY_CD = '005-00' OR works as long as you wrap it in a Case Statement
D.CATEGORY_CD IN ('015-00','015-06','015-10','615-07') works as long as you wrap it in a Case Statement
Peoplesoft hates Smart Quotes. None of the above will work if you're copying quotation marks directly from Word, but you won't see it unless you save, leave and come back to the same query in edit mode
Formatting is important. All of the above require the proper comma/quotation formatting, as pointed out by Rene and Wayne. Meaning: ('xxx-xx', 'xxx-01','xxx-02') etc
Thanks to everyone who helped on this! I don't think I've head-desked this hard before on any question, but I guess that's part of the learning process. Since all the answers posted are valid and correct (or at least a portion of the larger "correct"), I'm going to flag them all.
The
D.CATEGORY_CD IN ('015-00,'' '015-06,'' '015-10,'' '615-07'')
part looks fishy to me
Since a '' within a string "evaluates" to a single ' the first string is
'015-00,'' '
followed by (the non-string)
015-06,
The following '' is probably the thing that the parser stumbles upon since it's pretty meaningless.
Edit try it with a D.CATEGORY_CD IN ('015-00', '015-06', '015-10', '615-07').
Following the link you posted, I see 2 methods for doing what you are trying to accomplish.
I also notice that you tried a 3rd method.
Method 1
Criteria > Add Criteria
Expression Type: Character
Length: 255
Expression Text: D.CATEGORY_CD IN ('015-00','015-06','015-10','615-07') AND 1
Condition Type: equal to
Constant: 1
Method 2
Criteria > Add Criteria
Field: D.CATEGORY_CD
Condition Type: in list
Value: 015-00','015-06','015-10','615-07
Method 3 (Your Method)
Criteria > Add Criteria
Field: D.CATEGORY_CD
Condition Type: equal to
Define Expression: '015-00' OR D.CATEGORY_CD IN ('015-00','015-06','015-10','615-07')
Question) Does the below exactly match the text you are putting the Expression box?
'015-00' OR D.CATEGORY_CD IN ('015-00','015-06','015-10','615-07')
If not, what are you putting in that box?
I think the D.CATEGORY_CD criteria are giving you the problems, I changed the double quotes to single quotes and then it still looked strange to me. I then notice the commas are inside your quotes and not between them, try making the one criteria line look like this:
before:
OR D.CATEGORY_CD IN ('015-00,'' '015-06,'' '015-10,'' '615-07'')
after:
OR D.CATEGORY_CD IN ('015-00', '015-06', '015-10', '615-07')
Also, the "IN" is an implied "OR" and I am not sure if you have parenthesis around the two D.CATEGORY_CD,
I would just put the one additional code into the IN criteria and remove the "D.CATEGORY_CD =" line:
before:
AND D.CATEGORY_CD = '005-00' OR D.CATEGORY_CD IN ('015-00', '015-06', '015-10', '615-07')
after:
AND D.CATEGORY_CD IN ('015-00', '015-06', '015-10', '615-07', '005-00')
Of course, you are already ordering by CATEGORY_CD, you could remove this criteria and pull all categories in one run (that is unless there are too many rows for excel), and then you might also want to include either VENDOR_ID or NAME1 in the ORDER BY clause.
Hope that helps you.

Ruby on Rails - generating bit.ly style identifiers

I'm trying to generate UUIDs with the same style as bit.ly urls like:
http://bit [dot] ly/aUekJP
or cloudapp ones:
http://cl [dot] ly/1hVU
which are even smaller
how can I do it?
I'm now using UUID gem for ruby but I'm not sure if it's possible to limitate the length and get something like this.
I am currently using this:
UUID.generate.split("-")[0] => b9386070
But I would like to have even smaller and knowing that it will be unique.
Any help would be pretty much appreciated :)
edit note: replaced dot letters with [dot] for workaround of banned short link
You are confusing two different things here. A UUID is a universally unique identifier. It has a very high probability of being unique even if millions of them were being created all over the world at the same time. It is generally displayed as a 36 digit string. You can not chop off the first 8 characters and expect it to be unique.
Bitly, tinyurl et-al store links and generate a short code to represent that link. They do not reconstruct the URL from the code they look it up in a data-store and return the corresponding URL. These are not UUIDS.
Without knowing your application it is hard to advise on what method you should use, however you could store whatever you are pointing at in a data-store with a numeric key and then rebase the key to base32 using the 10 digits and 22 lowercase letters, perhaps avoiding the obvious typo problems like 'o' 'i' 'l' etc
EDIT
On further investigation there is a Ruby base32 gem available that implements Douglas Crockford's Base 32 implementation
A 5 character Base32 string can represent over 33 million integers and a 6 digit string over a billion.
If you are working with numbers, you can use the built in ruby methods
6175601989.to_s(30)
=> "8e45ttj"
to go back
"8e45ttj".to_i(30)
=>6175601989
So you don't have to store anything, you can always decode an incoming short_code.
This works ok for proof of concept, but you aren't able to avoid ambiguous characters like: 1lji0o. If you are just looking to use the code to obfuscate database record IDs, this will work fine. In general, short codes are supposed to be easy to remember and transfer from one medium to another, like reading it on someone's presentation slide, or hearing it over the phone. If you need to avoid characters that are hard to read or hard to 'hear', you might need to switch to a process where you generate an acceptable code, and store it.
I found this to be short and reliable:
def create_uuid(prefix=nil)
time = (Time.now.to_f * 10_000_000).to_i
jitter = rand(10_000_000)
key = "#{jitter}#{time}".to_i.to_s(36)
[prefix, key].compact.join('_')
end
This spits out unique keys that look like this: '3qaishe3gpp07w2m'
Reduce the 'jitter' size to reduce the key size.
Caveat:
This is not guaranteed unique (use SecureRandom.uuid for that), but it is highly reliable:
10_000_000.times.map {create_uuid}.uniq.length == 10_000_000
The only way to guarantee uniqueness is to keep a global count and increment it for each use: 0000, 0001, etc.

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