[A] tab_a (4+4+4) -> tab_b (12)

From: John Claxton <75363.640_at_CompuServe.COM>
Date: 1995/10/20
Message-ID: <468oht$oeb$1_at_mhadf.production.compuserve.com>#1/1

There was a post here recently about a table with a column (type varchar) populated by values like '4+4+4', '3+1', '1+9+22+3+4'. The poster wanted to know if there was a way to insert the calculated sums of the entries into another table. Something like:

	insert into table_b (calc_sums)
		select arith_string from table_a;

I'm a sys admin, not any Oracle coder, so I asked by DBA if he knew of any function within Oracle which might perform such a function. He did not.
If you're in unix (VMS has a similar capability) you could:

(1) select the columns into a spool file (spool.fil)
(2) use a shell script with the unix 'bc' command

	    to calculate the sum (or other valid arithmetic
	    function.
		Sample Shell Script:
		#!/bin/sh
		#set -x
		arith_string=`echo "${1}"
		bc << abcdefg
		$arith_string
		abcdefg
	    

[ more to follow ] Received on Fri Oct 20 1995 - 00:00:00 CET