Question

guys. Say I have the following table:

ID | String
---+---------  
1  | <123><345>  
2  | <1-2><45-67>  
3  | <345-321><234>

This is a legacy data format in my app which is currently impossible to avoid. What I need to acheive, is:

ID | String
---+---------
1  | <123>  
1  | <345>  
2  | <1-2>  
2  | <45-67>  
3  | <345-321>  
3  | <234>  

Any suggestions about how to acheive this result using only plain Oracle SQL without creating any additional objects or pl-sql procedures?

Thanks.

Answer 1

select id, string
  ,substr(string, instr(string, '<', 1, element_number)
    ,instr(string, '>', 1, element_number) - instr(string, '<', 1, element_number) + 1) result
from test
cross join
(
  select level element_number from dual connect by level <=
    (select max(length(string) - length(replace(string, '<', null))) max_elements from test)
) extra_rows
where element_number <= length(string) - length(replace(string, '<', null))
order by id, element_number;