Re: A question on the NVL to be re cristchened to ISNULL

From: Chris ( Val ) <chrisval_at_bigpond.com.au>
Date: 19 Oct 2005 18:41:16 -0700
Message-ID: <1129772476.636462.195570@g43g2000cwa.googlegroups.com>

bhushanvinay_at_gmail.com wrote:
> wanted to know if the oracle supported a varient datatype as to write
> a wraper to the nvl function, i discoverd that we cannot do a synonym
> for a system functions like NVL but nvl supports a varient datatype or
> it may have been designed to have a functin overloading concept in
> oracle as its a object oriented database.
>
> but how its developed is not my issue here can there be a varient
> datatype which it accepts and get me the varient output.
>
> CREATE OR REPLACE FUNCTION ISNULL( ARG1 VARIENT, ARG2 VARIENT)
> RETURN VARIENT IS
> RTNVAL VARIENT;
> BEGIN
> RETURN NVL(ARG1,ARG2);
> END;
> /
> SHOW ERRORS;
>
> any answers to this will be appriciated.

You haven't stated which version of Oracle you're using, but 9i introduced the 'anydata' data type which has a whole bunch of methods to help you out.

desc anydata;

Cheers,
Chris Val Received on Wed Oct 19 2005 - 20:41:16 CDT