Re: formatting output with SQL*Plus

From: Thomas Kellerer <NNGNVRDSJEBN_at_spammotel.com>
Date: Thu, 09 Dec 2004 23:55:50 +0100
Message-ID: <cpal5n$5g0$1@svr7.m-online.net>

DA Morgan wrote on 09.12.2004 23:22:
> you could try CASTing as a CLOB or alternatively CASTing as smaller
> VARCHARs. For example:

That gives me an "ORA-00932: inconsistent datatypes"

Casting to a smaller varchar doesn't help, as it truncates the entries...

> But I'd be fascinated to know why every column is defined as a
> VARCHAR2(2000) and see if you can bring some sanity to the design
> (assuming there isn't some valid reason for the size).

Don't ask :) It's used to store large portion of textual information in different languages. Some of them are actually HTML fragments (that's why they are that big). I can image a several better ways of storing (and moving around) this kind of information, but we have inherited this system and are not able to change it.
My (wild) guess is, that the original creators would have taken LONGs for every column if Oracle had only let them :)

Thanks for your help.

Cheers
Thomas Received on Thu Dec 09 2004 - 16:55:50 CST