RE: Query started getting 1722 error - interesting explanation why

  • From: "Goulet, Dick" <DGoulet@xxxxxxxx>
  • To: <JayMiller@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>, <oracle-l@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
  • Date: Fri, 9 Sep 2005 14:22:57 -0400

Jay,
 
    Did that varchar2 have numbers only in it before it stopped working
and then picked up one with an alpha character?  I've seen that one more
than I care to remember.

  _____  

From: oracle-l-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
[mailto:oracle-l-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of
JayMiller@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Sent: Friday, September 09, 2005 2:16 PM
To: oracle-l@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: Query started getting 1722 error - interesting explanation why



I got a call from a developer the other week complaining that a query in
QA had started giving an ora-1722.  It had worked fine for several
months and the identical query was working fine in production.

 

Select count(1) 

from prod.job_profile jp

where step_id < 9999

and not exists (select 'x' from prod.job_log jl

                where jl.job_id = jp.job_id

                and ( jl.status in ('C', 'EI') )

                and  jl.batch_id in (select to_number(text_value)

                                     from prod.batch_parameter

                                     where name = 'BATCH_ID'));

 

Investigating confirmed this, along with the fact that the query was
comparing a string (jl.batch_id) with a number (to_number(text_value)).
But why did it suddenly stop working and why did it still work in
production?

 

Comparing explain plans between QA and production I saw that they were
different (statistics had changed during QA testing).  The query that
failed was using an index on jl.batch_id.  

 

Apparently Oracle automatically took care of converting the string to a
number *unless* the number was being used to access an index on the
varchar2 column.  Interesting behavior.  I can see why it might work
that way but it's certainly not intuitive. 

 

Of course explaining this to the developer took quite a while.  "It
worked before, why shouldn't it work now?  What's wrong with Oracle?"

 

Oracle 9.2.0.6

 

 

Jay Miller

Sr. Oracle DBA

 

.

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