从shell传递到sqlplus时可变长度的变化

Question

While passing 1 character variables from sqlplus to shell, I find this annoying anomaly.

echo "Please enter the upgrade option: "
read type

if [[ "$type" != "1" ]] && [[ "$type" != "2" ]]
then
            echo "You have entered an invalid response. Exiting."
    exit 0;
fi

sql_result=$($ORACLE_HOME/bin/sqlplus -s /nolog <<-EOF
connect $eval_user/$eval_pass@$db_name

SPOOL results.txt;
WHENEVER OSERROR EXIT 9;

DEFINE vType = '$type'
DEFINE type_flag = '$t_flag'
DEFINE vOrigowner = '$origOwner'
@@EV_DBUPGRADE.sql '&vType' '&vOrigowner' '&vAppConvFromDt' '&vAppConvThruDt' '&vAppConvStatusFlg' '&type_flag'

Under EV_DBUPGRADE.sql, I find this error while using the variable vType:

vOption        varchar2(1)  := UPPER('&1');

I get this annoying error that complains of buffer length

declare
*
ERROR at line 1:
ORA-06502: PL/SQL: numeric or value error: character string buffer too small
ORA-06512: at line 7

the error doesn't happen if the varchar2(10) is used. But, I don't want to change it in a million different places. Is there anyway to restrict it? And can anyone please tell me how to print debug messages in sqlplus outside of the BEGIN?

Answer 1

I'm not sure exactly what is going on here, but the shell is doing something to your shell variable.

I was able to duplicate your error in ksh ("testme.ksh")

#!/bin/ksh

type="1"

sqlresult=$($ORACLE_HOME/bin/sqlplus -s /nolog << EOF
connect user/pswd@database
define vType = '$type'
@test.sql &vType
exit
/
EOF)

echo $sqlresult

The SQL script ("test.sql"):

declare
   vOption varchar2(1) := UPPER('&1');
begin
   dbms_output.put_line('Test: ' || vOption);
end;
/

The output:

Connected. old 2: vOption varchar2(1) := UPPER('&1'); new 2: vOption varchar2(1)
:= UPPER('$type'); declare test.sql testme.ksh ERROR at line 1: ORA-06502: PL/SQ
L: numeric or value error: character string buffer too small ORA-06512: at line
2

I'm not sure why this works, but I was able to work around it by passing the shell variable directly to the SQL script execution and bypassing the "define" statement:

#!/bin/ksh

type="1"

sqlresult=$($ORACLE_HOME/bin/sqlplus -s /nolog << EOF
connect user/pswd@database
@test.sql $type
exit
/
EOF)

echo $sqlresult

The output:

Connected. old 2: vOption varchar2(1) := UPPER('&1'); new 2: vOption varchar2(1)
:= UPPER('1'); PL/SQL procedure successfully completed.

Answer 2

Well, seems rgettman has the actual answer, but I'll leave this here for the bit about prompt ...

---

The quick version for adding debugs is to use prompt:

prompt Arg 1 is &1

or you could select the value from dual, which is a bit messier, or have a quick anonymous block around a dbms_output - but for this kind of quick check a prompt ought to be fine. If you're only looking for substitution values you can set verify on , which is the default so your script is probably turning it off at the moment.

The only way I can seem to get that effect is if I have a set define off (or scan off in old syntax) in the called script, so it tries to put the literal string &1 into the variable (which obviously won't fit) instead of the value it represents. Presumably, from the second part of the question, you can't see what's being put in there?

Anyway... if that isn't the problem - and it seems unlikely if it works called in isolation - then I'd wondered if it was a character set issue, but that doesn't sound right either. And I also wondered why you're forcing it to be a numeric value and then passing it as a string, which isn't really relevant to the problem. Perhaps adding more of the SQl script might shed some light - at least from the top to where the error is occurring.