Using the Continuation character in a DEFINE statement in Oracle SQL Developer - sql

Question

I have the following code in which I'm using a variable to pass a list of values to multiple SQL statements (I can't save in a table as I don't have authority and don't want to have to maintain the list in all of the various SQL sections).
It works fine as long as all of the values are on a single line... but as I have so many values; I'd like to split it into multiple lines and use the Continuation Character '-'.
I'm running Oracle SQL Developer 2.1.1.64 against Oracle 10g (I also tried this in PL/SQL Developer and it failed there as well)
--=========================================
define subclasses = ('10-1010-10','10-1010-15','10-1010-20', -
'10-1010-25','10-1010-30') --- there are another 60 values...
select item from item_master where ((subclass) in &&subclasses);
Select Price from Item_prices where ((subclass) in &&subclasses);
--=========================================
I get the following error
ORA-01722: invalid number
01722. 00000 - "invalid number"
as it is parsing the code as
select item from item_master where ((subclass) in ('10-1010-10','10-1010-15',
'10-1010-20', -'10-1010-25','10-1010-30'))
...keeping the continuation code '-' in the SQL....tho it DOES go to the 2nd line of values.
If I remove the '-' ... it only processes the values on the first line and parses as
select item from item_master where ((subclass) in ('10-1010-10','10-1010-15','10-1010-20', )
... losing the second to nth line of values (and throwing errors as it ends w/ ',' and doesn't have the final ')'). How do I fix this?

Answer 1

You could do this:
column subc new_value subclasses
select q'[('10-1010-10','10-1010-15','10-1010-20',
'10-1010-25','10-1010-30')]' as subc
from dual;
Now &subclasses. will contain all the codes.
NB I used the q'[...]' quote syntax to avoid have to double up all the quotes in the data.

Answer 2

I noticed that you are trying to substitute a list of string variables into the select statement. You should rewrite your define statement to make it a single list of strings like this:
define subclasses = '''10-1010-10'',''10-1010-15'',''10-1010-20'', -
''10-1010-25'',''10-1010-30'''; --- there are another 60 values...
The - should be fine as a continuation character (see Oracle documentation here).
Now, when you execute your select statements you need to edit the WHERE clause so they are formatted so it will plug those values directly in there as written:
Select item from item_master where subclass in (&subclasses);
Select Price from Item_prices where subclass in (&subclasses);
This will end up being interpreted as if you had written:
Select item from item_master
where subclass in ('10-1010-10','10-1010-15','10-1010-20', '10-1010-25','10-1010-30');
If you have a lot of values though, you might run into limitations for substitution variables if you are using SQL*Plus (i.e. limited to 240 bytes per variable). In that case, you can either split the variables into multiple variables and concatenate them in the SELECT, or if you are in a PL/SQL environment, you can create variables that will hold the larger data size.