Problem with encoded Text

[sladek]

Hi,
some of the names we store in the database are encoded, so only special users can read the real name. These encoded names are very cryptic and sometimes I have problems copying the result of a select with such names to Excel. The table in Excel has fewer rows than the query result. It seems that there is a problem with leading double-quotes - Excel puts the content of all cells in one cell, until the next double-quote appears. If the query result has 2 leading double-quotes, Excel will throw them both away.
When I'm using our "old" Tool - the Vision:Explorer from Sterling Software - all works fine. So in my opinion it could be a problem with escape characters?
Can you reconstruct the problem?
Kind regards
Jens

 

[Marco Kalter]

I can't immediately reproduce the problem. Can you send me a table creation DLL and some insert statements that would allow me to perform a query that would reproduce the issue?

 

[sladek]

Simply try the following select. The problem ist not really caused by the encoded text but by the leading double quotes. Execute the select and copy the result to Excel.

select '"Text', 'hello', 'you" and me', 'test' from dual

For me it produces ("Copy with Header") 4 cells with headings and only 2 cells below with content.

 

[Marco Kalter]

I see. I'm not sure if this "interpretation error between PL/SQL Developer, the Windows Clipboard, and Excel" can be fixed, but if you use the "Copy to Excel" function it works okay.