I was going through some old code that was written in years past by another developer at my organization. Whilst trying to improve this code, I discovered that the query it uses had a very bad problem.
OdbcDataAdapter financialAidDocsQuery =
new OdbcDataAdapter(
@"SELECT a.RRRAREQ_TREQ_CODE,
b.RTVTREQ_SHORT_DESC,
a.RRRAREQ_TRST_DESC,
RRRAREQ_STAT_DATE,
RRRAREQ_EST_DATE,
a.RRRAREQ_SAT_IND,
a.RRRAREQ_SBGI_CODE,
b.RTVTREQ_PERK_MPN_FLAG,
b.RTVTREQ_PCKG_IND,
a.RRRAREQ_MEMO_IND,
a.RRRAREQ_TRK_LTR_IND,
a.RRRAREQ_DISB_IND,
a.RRRAREQ_FUND_CODE,
a.RRRAREQ_SYS_IND
FROM FAISMGR.RRRAREQ a, FAISMGR.RTVTREQ b
WHERE a.RRRAREQ_TREQ_CODE = b.RTVTREQ_CODE
and a.RRRAREQ_PIDM = :PIDM
AND a.RRRAREQ_AIDY_CODE = :AidYear ",
this.bannerOracle);
financialAidDocsQuery.SelectCommand.Parameters.Add(":PIDM", OdbcType.Int, 32).Value = this.pidm;
financialAidDocsQuery.SelectCommand.Parameters.Add(":AidYear", OdbcType.Int, 32).Value = this.aidYear;
DataTable financialAidDocsResults = new DataTable();
financialAidDocsQuery.Fill(financialAidDocsResults);
FADocsGridView.DataSource = financialAidDocsResults;
FADocsGridView.DataBind();
The problem is that the column a.RRRAREQ_TRST_DESC does not exist. A fact you learn very quickly when running it in Oracle SQL Developer.
The strange thing?
This code works.
The gridview binds successfully. (It doesn't try to bind to that field.) And it's been in production for years.
So, my question is...why? I've never seen a bad query work. I've never seen Oracle allow it or a data provider hack around it.
Does anyone have any idea what's going on here?