Oracle SQL Developer 3.1.07 extra spaces between characters using listagg

Question

I am using SQL Developer 3.1.07 on an 11g database When I use listagg to extract multiple values from a field I get a space between each character in the results for the listagg column. The query returns all the values I expect to see, it's just the extra spaces that are driving me nuts. Any thoughts?

Here is one query that I have used, but it happens everytime I use listagg in a query:

select a.personnum Emp_ID
      , a.personfullname Name
      , a.companyhiredtm Hire_Date
      , a.employmentstatus Status
      , a.employmentstatusdt Status_Date
      , h.Supervisor, h.Agency 
from vp_employeev42 a
  left outer join (select f.personid
                           , listagg (g.personcstmdatatxt, ',') within group  
                              (order by g.customdatadefid) Supervisor 
                    from vp_employeev42 f
                    left outer join personcstmdata g 
                        on f.personid = g.personid
                     where f.personnum like 'T%' 
                     and f.homelaborlevelnm3 = '1872'
                     and (g.customdatadefid = '1' 
                             or g.personcstmdatatxt is null)
                     group by f.personid) h
          on a.personid = h.personid
  left outer join (select f.personid
                      , listagg (g.personcstmdatatxt, ',') 
                              within group (order by g.customdatadefid) Agency
                   from vp_employeev42 f
                     left outer join personcstmdata g 
                           on f.personid = g.personid
                    where f.personnum like 'T%' 
                    and homelaborlevelnm3 = '1872' 
                    and (g.customdatadefid = '3' 
                              or g.personcstmdatatxt is null)
                      group by f.personid) h 
      on a.personid = h.personid   
where personnum like 'T%' 
and homelaborlevelnm3 = '1872' 
order by personnum;

Here are the results I get:

EMP_ID,NAME,HIRE_DATE,STATUS,STATUS_DATE,SUPERVISOR,AGENCY
T98999,Lxxxxm, Lxxxn,20-SEP-12,Active,20-SEP-12,, S t a f f m a r k

T98989,Fxxxxn, Dxxxxa,10-DEC-12,Active,10-DEC-12,, S t a f f m a r k

T99989,Hxxxs, Cxxxxxa,02-OCT-12,Active,02-OCT-12,, S t a f f m a r k
T99999,Hxxxs, Dxxxn,30-JAN-12,Terminated,21-MAY-12, C x x x x x x x x x r   T x x x x r, P R O L O G I S T I X

Answer 1

are you using UTF-16 + NVARCHAR2 by any chance? eg this:

SQL> select * from nls_database_parameters where parameter='NLS_NCHAR_CHARACTERSET';

PARAMETER                      VALUE
------------------------------ ----------------------------------------
NLS_NCHAR_CHARACTERSET         AL16UTF16

SQL> drop table test;

Table dropped.

SQL> create table test(a nvarchar2(10));

Table created.

SQL> insert into test values ('test');

1 row created.

SQL> insert into test values ('test 2');

1 row created.

SQL> select listagg(a, ',') within group (order by 1) from test group by 1;

LISTAGG(A,',')WITHINGROUP(ORDERBY1)
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
 t e s t, t e s t   2

you could cast to a char to get round this. IF this is not acceptible, you need to raise a ticket with Oracle support.

SQL> select listagg(to_char(a),',') within group (order by 1) from test group by 1;

LISTAGG(TO_CHAR(A),',')WITHINGROUP(ORDERBY1)
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
test,test 2

SQL>