Display Negative Number in angle brackets

We often wonder and write all the codes to display negative numbers in brackets. But this can be easily achieved using a TO_CHAR function with the correct format.

TO_CHAR(number, '9999PR') -
Returns negative value in angle brackets.
Returns positive value with a leading and trailing blank.
Restriction: The PR format element can appear only in the last position of a number format model.

Below is an example to achieve this

select to_char(-133133,'99999999999PR') from dual

In above example the number is displayed in brackets without comma seperator.

Following query can be used to display negative numbers in angular bracket with comma seperator.

select to_char(-133133,'999G999G990D99PR') from dual

Keywords: angle, angular, negative, brackets

ORA-24323: Value not Allowed error in Oracle Reports

Sometimes while working in Oracle Reports whenever we are trying to modify any query in the data model
ORA-24323: Value not allowed error is raised.

This happens when we are connected to database and for some reason the connection is dropped/disconnected. When we click on file menu, we feel like the connection still exists, but in reality this is not true. To overcome this error, completely close report builder and reopen it.