SELECT DISTINCT CLOB_COLUMN FROM TABLE; - oracle

Question

I would like to find the distinct CLOB values that can assume the column called CLOB_COLUMN (of type CLOB) contained in the table called COPIA.
I have selected a PROCEDURAL WAY to solve this problem, but I would prefer to give a simple SELECT as the following: SELECT DISTINCT CLOB_COLUMN FROM TABLE avoiding the error "ORA-00932: inconsistent datatypes: expected - got CLOB"
How can I achieve this?
Thank you in advance for your kind cooperation. This is the procedural way I've thought:
-- Find the distinct CLOB values that can assume the column called CLOB_COLUMN (of type CLOB)
-- contained in the table called COPIA
-- Before the execution of the following PL/SQL script, the CLOB values (including duplicates)
-- are contained in the source table, called S1
-- At the end of the excecution of the PL/SQL script, the distinct values of the column called CLOB_COLUMN
-- can be find in the target table called S2
BEGIN
EXECUTE IMMEDIATE 'TRUNCATE TABLE S1 DROP STORAGE';
EXECUTE IMMEDIATE 'DROP TABLE S1 CASCADE CONSTRAINTS PURGE';
EXCEPTION
WHEN OTHERS
THEN
BEGIN
NULL;
END;
END;
BEGIN
EXECUTE IMMEDIATE 'TRUNCATE TABLE S2 DROP STORAGE';
EXECUTE IMMEDIATE 'DROP TABLE S2 CASCADE CONSTRAINTS PURGE';
EXCEPTION
WHEN OTHERS
THEN
BEGIN
NULL;
END;
END;
CREATE GLOBAL TEMPORARY TABLE S1
ON COMMIT PRESERVE ROWS
AS
SELECT CLOB_COLUMN FROM COPIA;
CREATE GLOBAL TEMPORARY TABLE S2
ON COMMIT PRESERVE ROWS
AS
SELECT *
FROM S1
WHERE 3 = 9;
BEGIN
DECLARE
CONTEGGIO NUMBER;
CURSOR C1
IS
SELECT CLOB_COLUMN FROM S1;
C1_REC C1%ROWTYPE;
BEGIN
FOR C1_REC IN C1
LOOP
-- How many records, in S2 table, are equal to c1_rec.clob_column?
SELECT COUNT (*)
INTO CONTEGGIO
FROM S2 BETA
WHERE DBMS_LOB.
COMPARE (BETA.CLOB_COLUMN,
C1_REC.CLOB_COLUMN) = 0;
-- If it does not exist, in S2, a record equal to c1_rec.clob_column,
-- insert c1_rec.clob_column in the table called S2
IF CONTEGGIO = 0
THEN
BEGIN
INSERT INTO S2
VALUES (C1_REC.CLOB_COLUMN);
COMMIT;
END;
END IF;
END LOOP;
END;
END;

Answer 1

If it is acceptable to truncate your field to 32767 characters this works:
select distinct dbms_lob.substr(FIELD_CLOB,32767) from Table1

Answer 2

You could compare the hashes of the CLOB to determine if they are different:
SELECT your_clob
FROM your_table
WHERE ROWID IN (SELECT MIN(ROWID)
FROM your_table
GROUP BY dbms_crypto.HASH(your_clob, dbms_crypto.HASH_SH1))
Edit:
The HASH function doesn't guarantee that there will be no collision. By design however, it is really unlikely that you will get any collision. Still, if the collision risk (<2^80?) is not acceptable, you could improve the query by comparing (with dbms_lob.compare) the subset of rows that have the same hashes.

Answer 3

add TO_CHAR after distinct keyword to convert CLOB to CHAR
SELECT DISTINCT TO_CHAR(CLOB_FIELD) from table1; //This will return distinct values in CLOB_FIELD

Answer 4

Use this approach. In table profile column content is NCLOB. I added the where clause to reduce the time it takes to run which is high,
with
r as (select rownum i, content from profile where package = 'intl'),
s as (select distinct (select min(i) from r where dbms_lob.compare(r.content, t.content) = 0) min_i from profile t where t.package = 'intl')
select (select content from r where r.i = s.min_i) content from s
;
It is not about to win any prizes for efficiency but should work.

Answer 5

select distinct DBMS_LOB.substr(column_name, 3000) from table_name;

Answer 6

If truncating the clob to the size of a varchar2 won't work, and you're worried about hash collisions, you can:
Add a row number to every row;
Use DBMS_lob.compare in a not exists subquery. Exclude duplicates (this means: compare = 0) with a higher rownum.
For example:
create table t (
c1 clob
);
insert into t values ( 'xxx' );
insert into t values ( 'xxx' );
insert into t values ( 'yyy' );
commit;
with rws as (
select row_number () over ( order by rowid ) rn,
t.*
from t
)
select c1 from rws r1
where not exists (
select * from rws r2
where dbms_lob.compare ( r1.c1, r2.c1 ) = 0
and r1.rn > r2.rn
);
C1
xxx
yyy

Answer 7

To bypass the oracle error, you have to do something like this :
SELECT CLOB_COLUMN FROM TABLE COPIA C1
WHERE C1.ID IN (SELECT DISTINCT C2.ID FROM COPIA C2 WHERE ....)

Answer 8

I know this is an old question but I believe I've figure out a better way to do what you are asking.
It is kind of like a cheat really...The idea behind it is that You can't do a DISTINCT of a Clob column but you can do a DISTINCT on a Listagg function of a Clob_Column...you just need to play with the partition clause of the Listagg function to make sure it will only return one value.
With that in mind...here is my solution.
SELECT DISTINCT listagg(clob_column,'| ') within GROUP (ORDER BY unique_id) over (PARTITION BY unique_id) clob_column
FROM copia;