oracle 10g submit job function error

Question

I'm trying to schedule a job in oracle 10g but it says:

ORA-01846: not a valid day of the week.

Heres my code:

declare
    v_job_id1 number(19,0);
    v_job_id2 number(19,0);
begin
    dbms_job.submit(v_job_id1, 'CTX_DDL.OPTIMIZE_INDEX(''PSO_KEYWORD_SEARCH_IDX'', ''FULL'', 45);', NEXT_DAY(TRUNC(SYSDATE), 4) + 13/24, NEXT_DAY(TRUNC(SYSDATE), 4) + 13/24 + 7 );
     commit;
end;
/

But this work as intended:

select NEXT_DAY(TRUNC(SYSDATE - 1), 4) + 13/24 from dual;

ANy ideas?

Thank you!

Udo

Answer 1

I can't explain why it happens, but Oracle accepts invalid NEXT_DAY(...) call syntax in plain SQL.

But not in PL/SQL code. Try this:

declare 
  d date;
begin
  d := NEXT_DAY(TRUNC(SYSDATE), 4) + 13/24 + 7;
end;

and you got perfect ORA-01846 error.

Oracle suggests workaround with switching NLS_DATE_LANGUAGE session parameter before calling NEXT_DAY to 'AMERICAN' and return it back after calculation.

Example:

DECLARE
FUNCTION get_next_day(dn IN VARCHAR2,ln IN VARCHAR2) RETURN DATE IS
CURSOR cr1 IS
SELECT value
  FROM nls_session_parameters
 WHERE parameter = 'NLS_DATE_LANGUAGE';
CURSOR cr2(dn1 IN VARCHAR2) IS
SELECT next_day(SYSDATE,UPPER(dn1))
  FROM dual;
day DATE;
old_date_lang varchar2(128);
BEGIN
  OPEN cr1;
  FETCH cr1 INTO old_date_lang;
  CLOSE cr1;
  dbms_session.set_nls('NLS_DATE_LANGUAGE',ln);
  OPEN cr2(dn);
  FETCH cr2 INTO day;
  CLOSE cr2;
  dbms_session.set_nls('NLS_DATE_LANGUAGE', old_date_lang);
  RETURN (day);
END;
BEGIN
  dbms_output.put_line(TO_CHAR(get_next_day('MONDAY','AMERICAN'),'DAY dd/mm/yyyy'));
END;

From my point of view better to avoid using NLS-aware functions at all, but day-of-a-week NLS-depended by definition: at some countries week starts from Sunday, at other countries - from Monday ...

You can try to use TRUNC() function with 'D' option to lower NLS effect:

select 
  NEXT_DAY(TRUNC(SYSDATE), 4)          as D1, 
  NEXT_DAY(TRUNC(SYSDATE), 'THU')      as D2, 
  case     
    -- next Thursday on this week
    when (TRUNC(SYSDATE,'D') + 4) > trunc(sysdate) then (TRUNC(SYSDATE,'D') + 4)
    -- next Thursday on next week
    else (TRUNC(SYSDATE,'D') + 4) + 7 
  end                                  as D3
from dual

In your case this looks like that:

dbms_job.submit(
  JOB       =>  v_job_id1, 
  WHAT      => 'CTX_DDL.OPTIMIZE_INDEX(''PSO_KEYWORD_SEARCH_IDX'', ''FULL'', 45);',
  NEXT_DATE => (
                 case     
                   -- next Thursday on this week
                   when (TRUNC(SYSDATE,'D') + 4) > trunc(sysdate) then (TRUNC(SYSDATE,'D') + 4)
                   -- next Thursday on next week
                   else (TRUNC(SYSDATE,'D') + 4) + 7 
                 end               
               ), 
  INTERVAL  => '
      case     
        when (TRUNC(SYSDATE,''D'') + 4) > trunc(sysdate) then (TRUNC(SYSDATE,''D'') + 4)
        else (TRUNC(SYSDATE,''D'') + 4) + 7 
      end               
  '
);

---

Update:

Perfect workaround is to get name of the day from current NLS settings and use as day name. Because Aug-12-2010 definitely Thursday you can use it as base date to get day-of-the-week name:

select to_char(to_date('20100812','yyyymmdd'), 'DAY') from dual  

Then add name to function call instead of 4 constant:

dbms_job.submit(
  JOB       =>  v_job_id1, 
  WHAT      => 'CTX_DDL.OPTIMIZE_INDEX(''PSO_KEYWORD_SEARCH_IDX'', ''FULL'', 45);',
  NEXT_DATE => NEXT_DAY(TRUNC(SYSDATE), to_char(to_date('20100812','yyyymmdd'), 'DAY')) + 13/24, 
  INTERVAL  => 'NEXT_DAY(TRUNC(SYSDATE), to_char(to_date(''20100812'',''yyyymmdd''), ''DAY'')) + 13/24 + 7'
);