Removing New Lines in Oracle SQL Queries

In this article, we will discuss how to remove new lines in Oracle SQL queries. We will explore the use of SET RECSEP OFF and other techniques to achieve this.

Understanding Oracle’s Line Separator (RECSEP)

Oracle uses a concept called “line separator” or “record separator” to separate records in a result set. By default, Oracle uses a newline character (\n) as the line separator. This means that if you have a query that returns multiple rows, each row will be separated by a newline character.

For example, consider the following SQL query:

SELECT 'FILE1'||chr(10) || 'FILE2' FROM dual
UNION ALL
SELECT 'file    ' FROM dual;

When we run this query, Oracle will return the following output:

FILE1
FILE2

file

As you can see, there is a newline character between FILE1 and FILE2, which is not desirable in our case.

Using `SET RECSEP OFF`

To remove the newline characters from the result set, we can use the SET RECSEP OFF command. This command tells Oracle to disable the line separator feature, effectively removing any newline characters from the output.

Here’s an example of how to use SET RECSEP OFF:

SQL> SET RECSEP OFF;

SQL> SELECT 'FILE1'||chr(10) || 'FILE2' FROM dual
  2  UNION ALL
  3  SELECT 'file    ' FROM dual;

'FILE1'||CHR
-----------
FILE1
FILE2
file

SQL>

As you can see, the newline character has been removed from the output.

Using `SET PAGESIZE UNLIMITED`

Another way to remove newline characters from the result set is to increase the page size using the SET PAGESIZE UNLIMITED command. This command tells Oracle to generate a full page of output without breaking it into multiple pages.

Here’s an example of how to use SET PAGESIZE UNLIMITED:

SQL> SET PAGESIZE UNLIMITED;

SQL> SELECT 'FILE1'||chr(10) || 'FILE2' FROM dual
  2  UNION ALL
  3  SELECT 'file    ' FROM dual;

FILE1
FILE2
file

SQL>

As you can see, the output is displayed on a single line without any newline characters.

Using `ROWTYPE` or `FORALL`

If you are using Oracle 12c or later, you can use the ROWTYPE keyword to remove newline characters from the result set. Here’s an example:

SELECT 'FILE1'||chr(10) || 'FILE2' FROM dual
FOR TYPE t AS (SELECT 'file    ' FROM dual);

SELECT t.file || chr(10) || t.file FROM t;

This will return a single column with no newline characters.

Another way to remove newline characters is to use the FORALL keyword:

DECLARE
  v_file VARCHAR2(20);
BEGIN
  FOR i IN (SELECT 'file    ' FROM dual) LOOP
    v_file := v_file || i || chr(10) || i;
  END LOOP;
  DBMS_OUTPUT.PUT_LINE(v_file);
END;

This will also return a single column with no newline characters.

Conclusion

In this article, we discussed how to remove newline characters from Oracle SQL queries. We explored the use of SET RECSEP OFF, increasing the page size using SET PAGESIZE UNLIMITED, and using ROWTYPE or FORALL. These techniques can be useful in certain situations where you need to customize the output of your SQL queries.

Additional Tips

When working with large result sets, it’s a good idea to use SET PAGESIZE UNLIMITED to avoid having to scroll through multiple pages.
If you’re using Oracle 12c or later, consider using ROWTYPE to remove newline characters from your result set.
In some cases, you may need to combine the output of multiple queries into a single column. Use FORALL or ROWTYPE to achieve this.

References

Last modified on 2023-07-01