问题
I have the following query that I am attempting to use as a COMMAND in a crystal report that I am working on.
SELECT * FROM myTable
WHERE to_date(myTable.sdate, 'MM/dd/yyyy') <= {?EndDate}
This works fine, however my only concern is that the date may not always be in the correct format (due to user error). I know that when the to_date function fails it throws an exception.. is it possible to handle this exception in such a way that it ignores the corresponding row in my SELECT statement? Because otherwise my report would break if only one date in the entire database is incorrectly formatted.
I looked to see if Oracle offers an isDate function, but it seems like you are supposed to just handle the exception. Any help would be greatly appreciated. Thanks!!
回答1:
Echoing Tony's comment, you'd be far better off storing dates in DATE columns rather than forcing a front-end query tool to find and handle these exceptions.
If you're stuck with an incorrect data model, however, the simplest option is to create a function that does the conversion and handles the error,
CREATE OR REPLACE FUNCTION my_to_date( p_date_str IN VARCHAR2,
p_format_mask IN VARCHAR2 )
RETURN DATE
IS
l_date DATE;
BEGIN
l_date := to_date( p_date_str, p_format_mask );
RETURN l_date;
EXCEPTION
WHEN others THEN
RETURN null;
END my_to_date;
Your query would then become
SELECT *
FROM myTable
WHERE my_to_date(myTable.sdate, 'MM/dd/yyyy') <= {?EndDate}
Of course, you'd most likely want a function-based index on the MY_TO_DATE call in order to make this query reasonably efficient.
回答2:
If your data is not consistent and dates stored as strings may not be valid then you have 3 options.
- Refactor your DB to make sure that the column stores a date datatype
- Handle the exception of string to date in a stored procedure
- Handle the exception of string to date in a (complex) record selection formula
I would suggest using the first option as your data should be consistent.
The second option will provide some flexibility and speed as the report will only fetch the rows that are needed.
The third option will force the report to fetch every record in the table and then have the report filter down the records.
回答3:
I have the same problem... an old legacy database with varchar fields for dates and decades of bad data in the field. As much as I'd like to, I can't change the datatypes either. But I came up with this solution to find if a date is current, which seems to be what you're doing as well:
select * from MyTable
where regexp_like(sdate, '[0-1][0-9].[0-3][0-9].[0-9][0-9][0-9][0-9]')
-- make sure it's in the right format and ignore rows that are not
and substr(sdate,7,10) || substr(sdate,1,2) || substr(sdate,4,5) >= to_char({?EndDate}, 'YYYYMMDD')
-- put the date in ISO format and do a string compare
The benefit of this approach is it doesn't choke on dates like "February 30".
回答4:
Since you say that you have "no access" to the database, I am assuming that you can not create any functions to help you with this and that you can only run queries?
If that is the case, then the following code should get you most of what you need with the following caveats: 1) The stored date format that you want to evaluate is 'mm/dd/yyyy'. If this is not the case, then you can alter the code to fit your format. 2) The database does not contain invalid dates such as Feb 30th.
First, I created my test table and test data:
create table test ( x number, sdate varchar2(20));
insert into test values (1, null);
insert into test values (2, '01/01/1999');
insert into test values (3, '1999/01/01');
insert into test values (4, '01-01-1999');
insert into test values (5, '01/01-1999');
insert into test values (6, '01-01/1999');
insert into test values (7, '12/31/1999');
insert into test values (8, '31/12/1999');
commit;
Now, the query:
WITH dates AS (
SELECT x
, sdate
, substr(sdate,1,2) as mm
, substr(sdate,4,2) as dd
, substr(sdate,7,4) as yyyy
FROM test
WHERE ( substr(sdate,1,2) IS NOT NAN -- make sure the first 2 characters are digits
AND to_number(substr(sdate,1,2)) between 1 and 12 -- and are between 0 and 12
AND substr(sdate,3,1) = '/' -- make sure the next character is a '/'
AND substr(sdate,4,2) IS NOT NAN -- make sure the next 2 are digits
AND to_number(substr(sdate,4,2)) between 1 and 31 -- and are between 0 and 31
AND substr(sdate,6,1) = '/' -- make sure the next character is a '/'
AND substr(sdate,7,4) IS NOT NAN -- make sure the next 4 are digits
AND to_number(substr(sdate,7,4)) between 1 and 9999 -- and are between 1 and 9999
)
)
SELECT x, sdate
FROM dates
WHERE to_date(mm||'/'||dd||'/'||yyyy,'mm/dd/yyyy') <= to_date('08/01/1999','mm/dd/yyyy');
And my results:
X SDATE
- ----------
2 01/01/1999
The WITH statement will do most of the validating to make sure that the sdate values are at least in the proper format. I had to break out each time unit month / day / year to do the to_date evaluation because I was still getting an invalid month error when I did a to_date on sdate.
I hope this helps.
回答5:
Trust this reply clarifies...
there is no direct EXCEPTION HANDLER for invalid date.
One easy way is given below once you know the format like DD/MM/YYYY then below given REGEXP_LIKE function will work like a charm.
to_date() also will work, when invalid_date is found then cursor will goto OTHERS EXCEPTION. given below.
DECLARE
tmpnum NUMBER; -- (1=true; 0 = false)
ov_errmsg LONG;
tmpdate DATE;
lv_date VARCHAR2 (15);
BEGIN
lv_date := '6/2/2018'; -- this will fail in *regexp_like* itself
lv_date := '06/22/2018'; -- this will fail in *to_date* and will be caught in *exception WHEN OTHERS* block
lv_date := '07/03/2018'; -- this will succeed
BEGIN
tmpnum := REGEXP_LIKE (lv_date, '[0-9]{2}/[0-9]{2}/[0-9]{4}');
IF tmpnum = 0
THEN -- (1=true; 0 = false)
ov_errmsg := '1. INVALID DATE FORMAT ';
DBMS_OUTPUT.PUT_LINE (ov_errmsg);
RETURN;
END IF;
tmpdate := TO_DATE (lv_date, 'DD/MM/RRRR');
--tmpdate := TRUNC (NVL (to_date(lv_date,'DD/MM/RRRR'), SYSDATE));
tmpnum := 1;
EXCEPTION
WHEN OTHERS
THEN
BEGIN
tmpnum := 0;
ov_errmsg := '2. INVALID DATE FORMAT ';
DBMS_OUTPUT.PUT_LINE (ov_errmsg || SQLERRM);
RETURN;
END;
-- continue with your other query blocks
END;
-- continue with your other query blocks
DBMS_OUTPUT.PUT_LINE (tmpnum);
END;
来源：https://stackoverflow.com/questions/5966274/how-to-handle-to-date-exceptions-in-a-select-statment-to-ignore-those-rows