How to use BOOLEAN type in SELECT statement

Question

I have a PL/SQL function with BOOLEAN in parameter:

function get_something(name in varchar2, ignore_notfound in boolean);

This function is a part of 3rd party tool, I cannot change this.

I would like to use this function inside a SELECT statement like this:

 select get_something('NAME', TRUE) from dual;

This does not work, I get this exception:

ORA-00904: "TRUE": invalid identifier

As I understand it, keyword TRUE is not recognized.

How can I make this work?

Answer 1

You can build a wrapper function like this:

function get_something(name in varchar2,
                   ignore_notfound in varchar2) return varchar2
is
begin
    return get_something (name, (upper(ignore_notfound) = 'TRUE') );
end;

then call:

select get_something('NAME', 'TRUE') from dual;

It's up to you what the valid values of ignore_notfound are in your version, I have assumed 'TRUE' means TRUE and anything else means FALSE.

Answer 2

Compile this in your database and start using boolean statements in your querys.

note: the function get's a varchar2 param, so be sure to wrap any "strings" in your statement. It will return 1 for true and 0 for false;

select bool('''abc''<''bfg''') from dual;

CREATE OR REPLACE function bool(p_str in varchar2) return varchar2 
 is
 begin

 execute immediate ' begin if '||P_str||' then
          :v_res :=  1;
       else
          :v_res :=  0;
       end if; end;' using out v_res;

       return v_res;

 exception 
  when others then 
    return '"'||p_str||'" is not a boolean expr.';
 end;
/

Answer 3

The answer to this question simply put is: Don't use BOOLEAN with Oracle-- PL/SQL is dumb and it doesn't work. Use another data type to run your process.

A note to SSRS report developers with Oracle datasource: You can use BOOLEAN parameters, but be careful how you implement. Oracle PL/SQL does not play nicely with BOOLEAN, but you can use the BOOLEAN value in the Tablix Filter if the data resides in your dataset. This really tripped me up, because I have used BOOLEAN parameter with Oracle data source. But in that instance I was filtering against Tablix data, not SQL query.

If the data is NOT in your SSRS Dataset Fields, you can rewrite the SQL something like this using an INTEGER parameter:

__

<ReportParameter Name="paramPickupOrders">
  <DataType>Integer</DataType>
  <DefaultValue>
    <Values>
      <Value>0</Value>
    </Values>
  </DefaultValue>
  <Prompt>Pickup orders?</Prompt>
  <ValidValues>
    <ParameterValues>
      <ParameterValue>
        <Value>0</Value>
        <Label>NO</Label>
      </ParameterValue>
      <ParameterValue>
        <Value>1</Value>
        <Label>YES</Label>
      </ParameterValue>
    </ParameterValues>
  </ValidValues>
</ReportParameter>

...

<Query>
<DataSourceName>Gmenu</DataSourceName>
<QueryParameters>
  <QueryParameter Name=":paramPickupOrders">
    <Value>=Parameters!paramPickupOrders.Value</Value>
  </QueryParameter>
<CommandText>
    where 
        (:paramPickupOrders = 0 AND ordh.PICKUP_FLAG = 'N'
        OR :paramPickupOrders = 1 AND ordh.PICKUP_FLAG = 'Y' )

If the data is in your SSRS Dataset Fields, you can use a tablix filter with a BOOLEAN parameter:

__

</ReportParameter>
<ReportParameter Name="paramFilterOrdersWithNoLoad">
  <DataType>Boolean</DataType>
  <DefaultValue>
    <Values>
      <Value>false</Value>
    </Values>
  </DefaultValue>
  <Prompt>Only orders with no load?</Prompt>
</ReportParameter>

...

<Tablix Name="tablix_dsMyData">
<Filters>
  <Filter>
    <FilterExpression>
        =(Parameters!paramFilterOrdersWithNoLoad.Value=false) 
        or (Parameters!paramFilterOrdersWithNoLoad.Value=true and Fields!LOADNUMBER.Value=0)
    </FilterExpression>
    <Operator>Equal</Operator>
    <FilterValues>
      <FilterValue DataType="Boolean">=true</FilterValue>
    </FilterValues>
  </Filter>
</Filters>

Answer 4

From documentation:

You cannot insert the values TRUE and FALSE into a database column. You cannot select or fetch column values into a BOOLEAN variable. Functions called from a SQL query cannot take any BOOLEAN parameters. Neither can built-in SQL functions such as TO_CHAR; to represent BOOLEAN values in output, you must use IF-THEN or CASE constructs to translate BOOLEANvalues into some other type, such as 0 or 1, 'Y' or 'N', 'true' or 'false', and so on.

You will need to make a wrapper function that takes an SQL datatype and use it instead.

Answer 5

select get_something('NAME', sys.diutil.int_to_bool(1)) from dual;

Answer 6

PL/SQL is complaining that TRUE is not a valid identifier, or variable. Set up a local variable, set it to TRUE, and pass it into the get_something function.