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Parsing DBMS_OUTPUT

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Testing with DBMS_OUTPUT.PUT_LINE is always a bit of a problem when you have strings longer than 80 characters in length, which occurs more frequently with Oracle Database 12c. An example of managing output occurs when you want to print a string with embedded line breaks. My solution is the following parse_rows procedure:

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CREATE OR REPLACE PROCEDURE parse_rows
( pv_text  VARCHAR2 ) IS
 
  /* Declare parsing indexes. */
  lv_start     NUMBER := 1;
  lv_end       NUMBER := 1;
  lv_length    NUMBER;
 
BEGIN
 
  /* Assign an end value based on parsing line return or length. */
  IF INSTR(pv_text,CHR(10),lv_start) = 0 THEN
    lv_end := LENGTH(pv_text) + 1;
  ELSE
    lv_end := INSTR(pv_text,CHR(10),lv_start);
  END IF;
 
  /* Assign a length value to the parsed string. */
  lv_length := lv_end - lv_start;
 
  /* Print first line. */
  DBMS_OUTPUT.put_line(SUBSTR(pv_text,lv_start,lv_length));
 
  /* Print the rows of a multiple line string. */
  WHILE (lv_end < LENGTH(pv_text)) LOOP
 
    /* Assign a new start value. */
    lv_start := lv_end + 1;
 
    /* Assign a new end value. */
    IF INSTR(pv_text,CHR(10),lv_start + 1) = 0 THEN
      lv_end := LENGTH(pv_text) + 1;
    ELSE
      lv_end := INSTR(pv_text,CHR(10),lv_start + 1);
    END IF;
 
    /* Assign a new length. */
    lv_length := lv_end - lv_start;
 
    /* Print the individual rows. */
    DBMS_OUTPUT.put_line(SUBSTR(pv_text,lv_start,lv_length));
 
  END LOOP;
END;
/

Here’s the example of a test program for the procedure:

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DECLARE
  /* Declare text. */
  lv_text  VARCHAR2(200) := 'This is too much'||CHR(10)||'information'||CHR(10)||'on one line.';
BEGIN
  parse_rows(lv_text);
END;
/

It prints the following:

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This is too much
information
on one line.

Hope this benefits those looking for quick solution.

Written by maclochlainn

May 21st, 2014 at 12:35 am

Posted in Oracle,Oracle 11g,Oracle 12c,pl/sql,sql

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