How to pass String values through variable in VARRAY functions in PL/SQL

Question

How to pass String values through variable in VARRAY functions in PL/SQL.

Coding:

create or replace
PROCEDURE dynamic_query_build
(
    vr_plan_sku_id     IN VARCHAR2
)
IS
  type plan_sku_id_array IS VARRAY(999) OF VARCHAR2(5000);
  plan_sku_id plan_sku_id_array;
  total integer;
  vrx_plan_sku_id VARCHAR2(3000);

BEGIN
  vrx_plan_sku_id:= replace(vr_plan_sku_id,',',chr(39)||','||chr(39));
  vrx_plan_sku_id:=chr(39)||vrx_plan_sku_id||chr(39);
  --plan_sku_id := plan_sku_id_array('Apple','Apple','Orange','Banana');
  dbms_output.put_line(vrx_plan_sku_id);
  plan_sku_id := plan_sku_id_array(vrx_plan_sku_id);

  total := plan_sku_id.count;
  dbms_output.put_line('Array count: 'total);

EXCEPTION
    WHEN OTHERS THEN
    raise_application_error(-20001,'An error was encountered - '||SQLCODE||' -ERROR- '||SQLERRM);
END dynamic_query_build;

Execution:

set serveroutput on;
declare
vr_plan_sku_id varchar2(200) := 'Apple,Apple,Orange,Banana';
BEGIN
   dynamic_query_build(vr_plan_sku_id);
END;
/

My Output:

Array count: 1

Expected Output:

Array count: 4

Explanation: When i pass the string values like "plan_sku_id_array('Apple','Apple','Orange','Banana')" then i am getting count values is 4.. But when i pass the same string through variables then it is considering whole value as single value in the varray.

Answer 1

You need to substring your input parameter (based on , ) and then do something like this post (eg call EXTEND(); then ary(count)= value ). Keep extending and adding as long as you still have some value in your input parameter

Answer 2

Can pass your value string like in given below way. This would convert entire comma separated string in different rows and you can run a loop and store variables in VARRAY.

 SELECT trim(x.column_value.extract('e/text()')) COLUMNS
 from t t, table (xmlsequence(xmltype('<e><e>' || replace(valuestring,':','</e><e>')||  
 '</e></e>').extract('e/e'))) x   );