select rtrim(char(PKG_AGR_IDR)),rtrim(char(STA_DTE))
from test FETCH FIRST 10 ROW ONLY
"0010000010. 2014-03-14"
"0010000010. 2014-03-14"
I need data as below:
0010000010 2014-03-14
I am planning to write a script to do rtrim(char(fieldname)) is there any combination of functions with which i can get proper output for both fields.
Some background about what is being done will be included, such that later references [such as to field_name] will be previously-explained rather than having to be intuited by a reviewer.
The intention is to enable dynamically generating an SQL SELECT statement that will retrieve a character-representation of the data from the columns of a specified TABLE. Given the DDL create table THE_SCHEMA.TEST ( PKG_AGR_IDR NUMERIC(10, 0), STA_DTE DATE )
and given the following DML used to populate that TABLE with a sample-row insert into THE_SCHEMA.TEST VALUES(10000010. '2014-03-14')
, what is desired is to obtain a result-set [limited to the first ten rows for the purpose of testing] that would include the data from each column [of the TABLE named TEST in THE_SCHEMA] as VARCHAR data, as produced from the following query that would have been generated from the metadata stored in the SYSCOLUMNS catalog VIEW:
select rtrim(char(PKG_AGR_IDR)),rtrim(char(STA_DTE))
from test
FETCH FIRST 10 ROW ONLY
The single expression generated as 'RTRIM(CHAR(' CONCAT COLUMN_NAME CONCAT '))'
from the SYSCOLUMNS data, as seen twice in the query noted just prior, seems unable to provide desirable results when applied to a column-name irrespective the value of the DATA_TYPE of the COLUMN_NAME being formatted by that character-expression. Specifically, for example, the result of the dynamically generated query select RTRIM(CHAR(PKG_AGR_IDR)), RTRIM(CHAR(STA_DTE)) from THE_SCHEMA.TEST FETCH FIRST 10 ROW ONLY
produces the following output:
0010000010. 2014-03-14
However the expected\desired output would be:
0010000010 2014-03-14
Is there any expression like RTRIM(CHAR(column_name)) that will function for all the columns in a TABLE, to obtain the data as character-string, regardless the data-type of the columns, whether they be numeric, varchar or date?
The claims about what is the output from the original expression are unexpected from the CHAR scalar effecting Decimal to Character casting, at least for the DB2 for i SQL for which the zero-scale packed decimal (DECIMAL) and zoned decimal (NUMERIC) SQL data types are represented without a decimal separator [aka decimal point] despite the optional decimal-character as the second argument. As well the CHAR scalar omits leading zeroes when casting from numeric. Thus the DB2 for i SQL would have obtained a result of the string '10000010'
rather than either of '0010000010.'
or '10000010.'
I suppose the issue may be specific to the DB2 for Z or the DB2 LUW, and perhaps this topic was incorrectly tagged with DB2 for i? Or perhaps there may be a[n unstated] concern about an apparent incompatibility betwixt the DB2 variants? Yet having read the documentation, the described results seem contrary to what is documented, so I suspect the actual problem for the OP may be due to having encountered a defect [in whatever is the unstated variant of the DB2 and release level that is being used].?
I do not expect that there will be any one expression that will perform what is desired for each of NUMERIC, VARCHAR, and DATE [nor for each of INTEGER, SMALLINT, NUMERIC, DECIMAL, VARCHAR, and DATE]. For omission of the decimal point, the DB2 for i SQL is probably the most like what is expressed as desired, but then the leading zeroes are always trimmed http://www.ibm.com/support/knowledgecenter/ssw_ibm_i_72/db2/rbafzscachar.htm
... Leading zeros are not returned. Trailing zeros are returned. If the scale of decimal-expression is zero, the decimal character is not returned. ...
The DB2 LUW SQL seems at least somewhat incoherent with regard to the topic of leading zeroes, as example 6 suggests none and then example 7 shows they are there, but like the above doc reference, clearly there should be no leading zero characters http://www.ibm.com/support/knowledgecenter/SSEPGG_10.1.0/com.ibm.db2.luw.sql.ref.doc/doc/r0000777.html
... Leading zeros are not included. Trailing zeros are included. ... If the scale of decimal-expression is zero, the decimal character is not returned. ...
I did not research a DB2 for Z doc link.
I would expect that the solution will entail using a CASE expression, perhaps for the DATA_TYPE value. That is what I did coding something similar, though I just used VARCHAR casting scalar and did not do any trimming. However my requirement for CASE was not about keeping leading zero characters, instead mostly for choosing the correct decimal-separator character. And because the second argument decimal-character [for CHAR or VARCHAR] is disallowed for the INTEGER numeric types [sqlcode -171 aka SQL0171], the CASE expression for just the numeric types would be sufficiently resolved using just the following expression CASE WHEN DATA_TYPE IN ('INTEGER', 'SMALLINT', 'BIGINT') THEN ', ' concat DecSep concat ')' ELSE ')'
appended to the 'VARCHAR(' concat
where DecSep was the one-character variable having either the comma or period as the chosen decimal separator. Yet because the second argument [for CHAR or VARCHAR] is specific to the data type of the first argument, the character and date\time data types had their own CASE expression CASE WHEN DATA_TYPE IN ('DATE', 'TIME') THEN ', ' concat StdFmt concat ')' ELSE ')'
appended to the 'VARCHAR(' concat
where StdFmt was the three-character variable having one of the standards format specifications of ISO, USA, EUR, or JIS.