Question

I have a quick question about fetching results from a weakly typed cursor and was wondering if anyone had come across this problem before?

My set up is as follows;

Inner function;

create or replace FUNCTION A_CURSOR_TEST_INNER (   varCursor OUT SYS_REFCURSOR ) RETURN NUMBER AS   varStatus NUMBER; BEGIN   OPEN varCursor  FOR   SELECT docid   FROM DOCUMENT_TABLE;    RETURN 0; END; 

Calling function;

create or replace FUNCTION A_CURSOR_TEST_OUTER (   varCursor  OUT SYS_REFCURSOR ) RETURN NUMBER AS   varStatus NUMBER; BEGIN   varStatus := A_CURSOR_TEST_INNER(varCursor  => varCursor);   RETURN 0; END; 

Test harness code;

DECLARE   varCursor  SYS_REFCURSOR;   v_Return NUMBER; BEGIN   v_Return := A_CURSOR_TEST_OUTER(varCursor  => varCursor);     DECLARE         docid_ NUMBER;     BEGIN         IF(varCursor %ISOPEN) THEN             LOOP                 FETCH varCursor  INTO docid_ ;                 EXIT WHEN varCursor %NOTFOUND;                 DBMS_OUTPUT.PUT_LINE(' docid_:' || docid_ );             END LOOP;             CLOSE varCursor ;         END IF;     END; END; 

The error I get if I run my test harness code is;

ORA-06504: PL/SQL: Return types of Result Set variables or query do not match

I’m not really sure what is causing this to occur. The error is happening in my test code, but I’ve used this exact same method hundreds of times before and not encountered this problem. The only difference now being, that the cursor is being passed back up through two functions instead of just one.

Does anyone have any idea what the problem might be here? I’ve Googled around for it and all I can find are suggestions to strongly type the cursors, which is not an option for me unfortunately.

Thanks for any help anyone can give, cheers.

Answer 1

I can replicate your problem, and it seems like an Oracle bug to me. From Googling the error I found this discussion of the same problem on OraFAQ.