Re: SELECT question

In article <340D9D3B.5E46FC51_at_mail1.dh.trw.com>,

   Rollin Weeks <Rollin.Weeks_at_mail1.dh.trw.com> wrote:
>Fred Hurtubise wrote:
>
>>
>> Question is :
>>
>> is there a way to select only the column that aren't null
>> something like select * from table where column is not null???
>
>What you describe sounds trivial; you have already stated it:
>
>select col1, col2, . . . from <table_name>
>where colx is not null (and coly is not null and colz is not null);
>
>Regards
>Rollin Weeks

It is not as trivial as suggested here. The original question was how to select only the non-null columns. This example would discard all rows where any of the columns were null! The simple answer is no - you can't do it. The real answer is that you could use decode and || to select only the non-null columns in SQL*Plus or use PL/SQL to manipulate the data prior to output. An example of the SQL*Plus approach might look something like the following...

Assume: The table "JUNK" contains varchar2 columns A, B, and C.

         The delimiting character in your output is to be "|"

SQL> select decode(A,null,null,A || "|")

            || decode(B,null,null,B || "|")
            || C from JUNK;

.. or some such thing.

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