Is there a non-ugly way to use a multi-column, multi-row table literal in an Oracle 11g query?

Question

I'm trying to use a "literal" multi-column table for a join query with Oracle 11g.

Here's the best I've come up with, based on this answer ( this answer suggests a much nicer syntax, but it only works for a single-column table as far as I can tell):

SELECT * from
(
 -- The ugly... it burns...
 select 'APPLE' as n, 'FRUIT' as m from dual
 union all select 'CARROT' as n, 'VEGGIE' as m from dual
 union all select 'PEACH' as n, 'FRUIT' as m from dual
 union all select 'CUCUMBER' as n, 'VEGGIE' as m from dual
 union all select 'ORANGE' as n, 'FRUIT' as m from dual
)

Is there a less ugly way to create a multi-row, multi-column literal table in Oracle? Unfortunately, I cannot create temporary tables.

<rant>As I've come to expect, PostgreSQL has a nice, sane syntax for literal tables, but Oracle is a mess.</rant>

EDIT: I had tried the row-value constructor syntax as suggested by @Mark Chesney but that doesn't work either: select n,m from dual where (n,m) in (...) gives me an Invalid Identifier error.

Answer 1

For two columns you can use ODCIObjectList:

select objectschema m, objectname n
  from table(sys.ODCIObjectList(
    sys.odciobject('APPLE', 'FRUIT'), 
    sys.odciobject('CARROT', 'VEGGIE'),
    sys.odciobject('PEACH', 'FRUIT'),
    sys.odciobject('CUCUMBER', 'VEGGIE'),
    sys.odciobject('ORANGE', 'FRUIT')));

M          N         
---------- ----------
APPLE      FRUIT     
CARROT     VEGGIE    
PEACH      FRUIT     
CUCUMBER   VEGGIE    
ORANGE     FRUIT 

For more columns you can define your own types:

create type t as object (a varchar2(10), b varchar2(10), c number);
create type tt as table of t;

select * from table( tt (
    t('APPLE', 'FRUIT', 1),
    t('APPLE', 'FRUIT', 1122), 
    t('CARROT', 'VEGGIE', 3),
    t('PEACH', 'FRUIT', 104),
    t('CUCUMBER', 'VEGGIE', 5),
    t('ORANGE', 'FRUIT', 6) ) )

A          B                   C
---------- ---------- ----------
APPLE      FRUIT               1 
APPLE      FRUIT            1122 
CARROT     VEGGIE              3 
PEACH      FRUIT             104 
CUCUMBER   VEGGIE              5 
ORANGE     FRUIT               6

Answer 2

For many columns you can join like this

SELECT a.v field1, b.v field2
  FROM (SELECT column_value v, rownum r
          FROM TABLE(sys.odcivarchar2list('abc', 'def', 'ghi'))) a
  JOIN (SELECT column_value v, rownum r
          FROM TABLE(sys.odcivarchar2list('abc', 'def', 'ghi'))) b ON a.r = b.r