To return the result of an arithmetic expression, use the @COMPUTE function. The value returned from the function is in the form of a string. Arithmetic expressions can be combinations of the following elements.

• Numbers

• The names of columns that contain numbers

• Functions that return numbers

• Arithmetic operators:

  • + (plus)

  • - (minus)

  • * (multiply)

  • / (divide)

  • \ (remainder)

• Comparison operators:

  • > (greater than)

  • >= (greater than or equal)

  • < (less than)

  • <= (less than or equal)

  • = (equal)

  • <> (not equal)

  Results that are derived from comparisons can be zero (indicating FALSE) or non-zero (indicating TRUE).

• Parentheses (for grouping results in the expression)

• The conjunction operators AND, OR. Oracle GoldenGate only evaluates the necessary part of a conjunction expression. Once a statement is FALSE, the rest of the expression is ignored. This can be valuable when evaluating fields that may be missing or null. For example, if the value of COL1 is 25 and the value of COL2 is 10, then the following are possible:

  @COMPUTE ( (COL1 > 0) AND (COL2 < 3) ) returns 0.
  @COMPUTE ( (COL1 < 0) AND (COL2 < 3) ) returns 0. COL2 < 3 is never evaluated.
  @COMPUTE ((COL1 + COL2)/5) returns 7.