Equivalent of R cbind() function in Oracle?

Question

I am new to sql and struggling to solve this very simple task.

Considering,

    with table1 as (select '1' col1 from dual union
select '2' col1 from dual union
select 'NO_PATTERN' col1 from dual union
select 'RANDOM_STUFF' col1 from dual)
    select * from table1;

and,

    with table2 as (select 'aaa' col2 from dual union
select '4' col2 from dual union
select 'qwewqeq' col2  from dual
union select 'UUUUUU' col2 from dual)
    select * from table2;

I want to perform a cbind() between the two columns into a new table which is the "vertical union" of table1.[col1] and table2[col2].

The EXPECTED solution is:

    with solution as (select '1' col1, 'aaa' col2 from dual union
select '2' col1, '4' col2 from dual union
select 'NO_PATTERN'  col1, 'qwewqeq' col2 from dual union
select 'RANDOM_STUFF'  col1, 'UUUUUU'  col2 from dual)
    select * from solution;

Any idea?

Answer 1

In Oracle you need to explicitly define some value to get ordered data; without that, you could have different results every time you run a query.

With your data, this:

WITH table1 AS
         (SELECT 1 rn, '1'            col1 FROM DUAL UNION
          SELECT 2 rn, '2'            col1 FROM DUAL UNION
          SELECT 3 rn, 'NO_PATTERN'   col1 FROM DUAL UNION
          SELECT 4 rn, 'RANDOM_STUFF' col1 FROM DUAL),
     table2 AS
         (SELECT 1 rn, 'aaa'     col2 FROM DUAL UNION
          SELECT 2 rn, '4'       col2 FROM DUAL UNION
          SELECT 3 rn, 'qwewqeq' col2 FROM DUAL UNION
          SELECT 4 rn, 'UUUUUU'  col2 FROM DUAL)
SELECT col1, col2, t1.rn
from (select  row_number() over (order by rn) as rn, col1 from table1 ) t1
       inner join 
     (select row_number() over (order by rn) as rn, col2 from table2 ) t2
     on (t1.rn = t2.rn)

gives:

COL1         COL2            RN
------------ ------- ----------
1            aaa              1
2            4                2
NO_PATTERN   qwewqeq          3
RANDOM_STUFF UUUUUU           4

Without an explicit ordering, for exampe, this

WITH table1 AS
         (SELECT '1'            col1 FROM DUAL UNION
          SELECT '2'            col1 FROM DUAL UNION
          SELECT 'NO_PATTERN'   col1 FROM DUAL UNION
          SELECT 'RANDOM_STUFF' col1 FROM DUAL),
     table2 AS
         (SELECT 'aaa'     col2 FROM DUAL UNION
          SELECT '4'       col2 FROM DUAL UNION
          SELECT 'qwewqeq' col2 FROM DUAL UNION
          SELECT 'UUUUUU'  col2 FROM DUAL)
SELECT col1, col2, t1.rn
from (select  rownum as rn, col1 from table1 ) t1
       inner join 
     (select rownum as rn, col2 from table2 ) t2
     on (t1.rn = t2.rn)

gives

COL1         COL2            RN
------------ ------- ----------
1            4                1
2            UUUUUU           2
NO_PATTERN   aaa              3
RANDOM_STUFF qwewqeq          4