Varying IN list of values in WHERE clause

One of the frequent question on Oracle forums is about the Varying IN list in WHERE clause. One such question was asked here http://stackoverflow.com/questions/27738359/select-from-table-with-varying-in-list-in-where-clause/27739139#27739139.

Let’s understand the issue.

Test case :

//DDLs to create the test tables

CREATE TABLE temp(ids VARCHAR2(4000));
CREATE TABLE temp_id(data_id NUMBER);

//DMLs to populate test data
INSERT INTO temp VALUES('1, 2, 3');

INSERT INTO temp_id VALUES(1);
INSERT INTO temp_id VALUES(2);
INSERT INTO temp_id VALUES(3);
INSERT INTO temp_id VALUES(4);
INSERT INTO temp_id VALUES(5);

Reason :

IN (‘1, 2, 3’) is NOT same as IN (1, 2, 3) OR IN(‘1’, ‘2’, ‘3’)

Hence,

SELECT * FROM temp_id WHERE data_id IN(SELECT ids FROM temp);

is same as

SELECT * FROM temp_id WHERE data_id IN('1, 2, 3');

which would thrown an error ORA-01722: invalid number –

SQL> SELECT * FROM temp_id WHERE data_id IN('1, 2, 3');
SELECT * FROM temp_id WHERE data_id IN('1, 2, 3')
*
ERROR at line 1:
ORA-01722: invalid number

SQL> SELECT * FROM temp_id WHERE data_id IN(SELECT ids FROM temp);
SELECT * FROM temp_id WHERE data_id IN(SELECT ids FROM temp)
*
ERROR at line 1:
ORA-01722: invalid number

Above is NOT same as

SELECT * FROM temp_id WHERE data_id IN(1, 2, 3);

which would give you correct output –

SQL> SELECT * FROM temp_id WHERE data_id IN(1, 2, 3);

DATA_ID
----------
1
2
3

SQL>

So, ‘1, 2, 3’ is a single string, a single value in that in list.

Solution :

For such requirement, we can achieve it like this –

SQL> SELECT * FROM temp;

IDS
--------------------------------------------------------------
1, 2, 3

SQL> SELECT * FROM temp_id;

DATA_ID
----------
1
2
3
4
5

SQL>
SQL> WITH data AS
2 (SELECT to_number(trim(regexp_substr(ids, '[^,]+', 1, LEVEL))) ids
3 FROM temp
4 CONNECT BY instr(ids, ',', 1, LEVEL - 1) > 0
5 )
6 SELECT * FROM temp_id WHERE data_id IN
7 (SELECT ids FROM data
8 )
9 /

DATA_ID
----------
1
2
3

SQL>

Alternatively, you can create your own TABLE function or a Pipelined function to achieve this. Your goal should be to split the comma-separated IN list into different rows. How you do it is up to you!

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