Remove duplicate values from comma separated variable in Oracle

Question

I have a variable (called: all_email_list) which contains 3 email address lists altogether. (I found some similar question but not the same with a proper solution)

Example: [email protected], [email protected],[email protected],[email protected], [email protected],[email protected] (it can contain spaces between comas but not all the time)

The desired output: [email protected], [email protected],[email protected],[email protected]

declare
first_email_list varchar2(4000);
second_email_list varchar2(4000);
third_email_list varchar2(4000);
all_email_list varchar2(4000);

begin

    select listagg(EMAIL,',') into first_email_list from UM_USER a left join UM_USERROLLE b on (a.mynetuser=b.NT_NAME) left join UM_RULES c on (c.id=b.RULEID) where RULEID = 902;
    select listagg(EMAIL,',') into second_email_list from table2 where CFT_ID =:P25_CFT_TEAM; 
    select EMAIL into third_email_list from table3 WHERE :P25_ID = ID;


    all_email_list:= first_email_list || ',' || second_email_list || ',' || third_email_list; 

    dbms_output.put_line(all_email_list);
end;

Any solution to solve this in a simple way? By regex maybe.

Answer 1

Solution description. Use CTE to first split up the list of emails into rows with 1 email address per row (testd_rows). Then select distinct rows (testd_rows_unique) from testd_rows and finally put them back together with listagg. From 19c onwards you can use LISTAGG with the DISTINCT keyword.

set serveroutput on size 999999
clear screen
declare

  all_email_list varchar2(4000);
  l_unique_email_list varchar2(4000);
  

begin
  all_email_list := '[email protected], [email protected],[email protected],[email protected], [email protected],[email protected]';

  WITH testd_rows(email) AS
  (
  select regexp_substr (all_email_list, '[^, ]+', 1, rownum) split  
    from dual 
  connect by level <= length (regexp_replace (all_email_list, '[^, ]+'))  + 1
  ), testd_rows_unique(email) AS
  (
  SELECT distinct email FROM testd_rows
  )
  SELECT listagg(email, ',') WITHIN GROUP (ORDER BY email) 
    INTO l_unique_email_list 
    FROM testd_rows_unique;

  dbms_output.put_line(l_unique_email_list);
end;
/

[email protected],[email protected],[email protected],[email protected]

But ... why are you converting rows to a comma separated string and then de-duping it ? Use UNION to take out the duplicate values in a single SELECT statement and do LISTAGG on the values. No regexp needed then. UNION will skip duplicates as opposed to UNION ALL which returns all the rows.

DECLARE
  all_email_list varchar2(4000);
BEGIN
  WITH all_email (email) AS
  (
    select email from UM_USER a left join UM_USERROLLE b on (a.mynetuser=b.NT_NAME) left join UM_RULES c on (c.id=b.RULEID) where RULEID = 902
    UNION
    select email from table2 where CFT_ID =:P25_CFT_TEAM
    UNION
    select email from table3 WHERE :P25_ID = ID
  )
  SELECT listagg(email, ',') WITHIN GROUP (ORDER BY email) 
    INTO all_email_list 
    FROM all_email;

  dbms_output.put_line(all_email_list);
END;
/