Look up SDO_GEOMETRY validation error code using SQL

Question

I have a query that validates an SDO_GEOMETRY in Oracle 18c:

select
    sdo_geom.validate_geometry_with_context(   
        sdo_geometry ('polygon ((676832.320 4857578.086, 665287.423 4857578.086, 665277.423 4878109.585, 
                                 676832.320 4878119.585, 676842.320 4857588.086))', 26917)
                                     , 0.005) as validation
from
    dual


VALIDATION                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                 
-----------------------------
13348 [Element <1>] [Ring <1>]

(1 row selected.)

db<>fiddle

The query produces an error code in a text column , but it doesn't describe what the code means.

I am able look up the error manually in the docs: 82 ORA-12700 to ORA-19400

ORA-13348: polygon boundary is not closed

Cause: The boundary of a polygon does not close.

Action: Alter the coordinate values or the definition of the SDO_GTYPE or SDO_ETYPE attribute of the geometry.

But manually looking up those error codes is inconvenient.

Is there a way to enhance the query so that it returns the full error description? (get the description from the database)

Answer 1

Assuming you can parse the string to pull out the error message, you can pass it to sqlerrm to get the text of the error (note that you're apparently getting a positive value, you'd need to negate that value to pass it to sqlerrm ). I would assume that you could just look for everything before the first space to get the error number but I don't have a huge sample set to work with.

declare
  l_message varchar2(1000);
begin
  l_message := sqlerrm( -13348 );
  dbms_output.put_line( l_message );
end;
/

will print

ORA-13348: polygon boundary is not closed

Answer 2

Building on @JustinCave's answer, here's a custom function that gets the error description from the validation text:

with function error_description(validation in varchar2) return varchar2 is
begin
    return sqlerrm(substr(validation, 1, instr(validation,' ') - 1) * -1);  --Multiply by -1. Oracle error codes seem to be "negative".
end;
    
select
    error_description(validation) as error_description
from
    (select
        sdo_geom.validate_geometry_with_context(   
            sdo_geometry ('polygon ((676832.320 4857578.086, 665287.423 4857578.086, 665277.423 4878109.585, 676832.320 4878119.585, 676842.320 4857588.086))', 26917), 0.005) as validation
    from dual)

ERROR_DESCRIPTION
-------------------
ORA-13348: polygon boundary is not closed

---

Edit:

As pointed out by @SolomonYakobson in a related post, the SQLERRM() function can also be used in a SELECT query (without the need for a custom function).

Are certain kinds of Oracle functions only available in PL/SQL, not SQL?

Many of the functions are defined in Oracle supplied package SYS.STANDARD.

Example: SELECT SYS.STANDARD.SQLERRM(-1422) FROM DUAL;

So we just need to fully qualify the function: SYS.STANDARD.SQLERRM()

select
    sys.standard.sqlerrm(substr(validation, 1, instr(validation,' ') - 1) * -1) error_description
from
    (select
        sdo_geom.validate_geometry_with_context(   
            sdo_geometry ('polygon ((676832.320 4857578.086, 665287.423 4857578.086, 665277.423 4878109.585, 676832.320 4878119.585, 676842.320 4857588.086))', 26917), 0.005) as validation
    from dual)


ERROR_DESCRIPTION
---------------------
ORA-13348: polygon boundary is not closed