How to fix Ora-01427 single-row subquery returns more than one row in select?

oracle, sql

Solution

Use the following query:

SELECT E.I_EmpID AS EMPID,
       E.I_EMPCODE AS EMPCODE,
       E.I_EmpName AS EMPNAME,
       REPLACE(TO_CHAR(A.I_REQDATE, 'DD-Mon-YYYY'), ' ', '') AS FROMDATE,
       REPLACE(TO_CHAR(A.I_ENDDATE, 'DD-Mon-YYYY'), ' ', '') AS TODATE,
       TO_CHAR(NOD) AS NOD,
       DECODE(A.I_DURATION,
              'FD',
              'FullDay',
              'FN',
              'ForeNoon',
              'AN',
              'AfterNoon') AS DURATION,
       L.I_LeaveType AS LEAVETYPE,
       REPLACE(TO_CHAR((SELECT max(C.I_WORKDATE)
                         FROM T_COMPENSATION C
                        WHERE C.I_COMPENSATEDDATE = A.I_REQDATE
                          AND C.I_EMPID = A.I_EMPID),
                       'DD-Mon-YYYY'),
               ' ',
               '') AS WORKDATE,
       A.I_REASON AS REASON,
       AP.I_REJECTREASON AS REJECTREASON
  FROM T_LEAVEAPPLY A
 INNER JOIN T_EMPLOYEE_MS E
    ON A.I_EMPID = E.I_EmpID
   AND UPPER(E.I_IsActive) = 'YES'
   AND A.I_STATUS = '1'
 INNER JOIN T_LeaveType_MS L
    ON A.I_LEAVETYPEID = L.I_LEAVETYPEID
  LEFT OUTER JOIN T_APPROVAL AP
    ON A.I_REQDATE = AP.I_REQDATE
   AND A.I_EMPID = AP.I_EMPID
   AND AP.I_APPROVALSTATUS = '1'
 WHERE E.I_EMPID <> '22'
 ORDER BY A.I_REQDATE DESC

The trick is to force the inner query return only one record by adding an aggregate function (I have used max() here). This will work perfectly as far as the query is concerned, but, honestly, OP should investigate why the inner query is returning multiple records by examining the data. Are these multiple records really relevant business wise?

Problem

Original source