Oracle error: character string buffer too small

Question

I am running a basic query that retrieves rows based on basic conditional clauses, nothing complex. This works fine:

<cfquery name="courses" datasource="banner">
        SELECT *
        FROM tjucatalog
        WHERE (course_status = 'Active')
            AND CONCAT(subject,course_no) IN (#PreserveSingleQuotes(courselist)#)
            AND term IN ('Fall 2012')
            AND ((end_date > #now()#) OR (course_meeting_info IS NOT NULL))
        ORDER BY TYear, TSort, DayNum, start_date, time, title
</cfquery>

However, when I remove the "AND term IN" line from the query, it fails.

<cfquery name="courses" datasource="banner">
        SELECT *
        FROM tjucatalog
        WHERE (course_status = 'Active')
            AND CONCAT(subject,course_no) IN (#PreserveSingleQuotes(courselist)#)
            AND ((end_date > #now()#) OR (course_meeting_info IS NOT NULL))
        ORDER BY TYear, TSort, DayNum, start_date, time, title
</cfquery>

The error I get is: ORA-06502: PL/SQL: numeric or value error: character string buffer too small ORA-06512: at "BANINST1.TJUCATALOG_PACK", line 519

Is this maybe a view that requires the field 'term' to be included, or is there something else at play here I'm entirely unaware of?

Answer 1

Our Oracle gurus returned and told us they had to change a field type from varchar2 (4000) to CLOB. The lack of the term field as a filter clause was a red herring error. I don't know which field specifically in the query needed to be increased for allowed length, but it works so I'm happy.