Question

I have a table called SOURCE_TAG where I want to insert a data where all the insert statements will differ only in one of the columns (this column is a primary key id in a table called SOURCE_LU ). However, to get the id of the column I should also do some work.

The following list contains a list of stringKeys (a column in SOURCE_LU)
So first, I should do some think like the following pseudo code in Oracle SQL

stringKeys= {"foo","bar","foobar","barfoo",...,"etc"}
for(each s in StringKeys) {

SELECT SOURCE_LU where stringKeys=s and Store the id in a list (lets say idList)

}

after getting the list of id’s insert each id in to SOURCE_TAG with other similar data for each row

for (each id in listId ){
  INSERT INTO SOURCE_TAG values (x,y,id)

}

Sorry, I am a java guy with little SQL knowledge. So how should use Arrays, and loops in Oracle SQL? The simpler the solution the better. Thank you.

Answer 1

SQL itself doesn’t have loops, but Oracle has a procedural language called PL/SQL that you can use. It has loops, conditionals, variables, and other things you might be used to.

However, I think what you are trying to accomplish can be done in regular SQL. Mind you, I haven’t used an Oracle installation in years and don’t have access to one right now, but in PostgreSQL you can do something like:

INSERT INTO SOURCE_TAG
(YEAR_ID,SOURCE_TAG_LU_ID,PRIORITY_ORDER,STATUS_EN,SOURCE_LU_ID)
select 4 as year_id, 2 as source_tag, 1000 as priority_order, 'ACTIVE' as status_en, id
from source_lu
where stringkeys in ('foo', 'bar', ...)
group by year_id, source_tag, priority_order, status_en, id;

It’s possible that group by id is enough in the last line.