Question

I select data from several tables. Then i need to edit the data returned from the cursor before returning. The cursor will then be passed to a perl script to display the rows.

To that i build a pl/sql table as in the following code. What i need to know is how to return the to that table ?

At present i get the error “table or view doesn’t exist”. Test code i use for a simple table is attached here.

CREATE OR REPLACE FUNCTION test_rep
RETURN SYS_REFCURSOR
AS

CURSOR rec_Cur IS 
    SELECT  table1.NAME, 
        table1.ID 
    FROM TESTREPORT table1;
TYPE rec_Table IS TABLE OF rec_Cur%ROWTYPE INDEX BY PLS_INTEGER;
working_Rec_Table rec_Table;    

TYPE n_trade_rec IS RECORD
(
    NAME    VARCHAR2(15), 
    ID      NUMBER
);
TYPE ga_novated_trades IS TABLE OF n_trade_rec index by VARCHAR2(15);
va_novated_trades    ga_novated_trades;
v_unique_key VARCHAR2(15);

TYPE db_cursor IS REF CURSOR;
db_cursor2 db_cursor; 

BEGIN

    OPEN rec_Cur;
    FETCH rec_Cur BULK COLLECT INTO working_Rec_Table;

    FOR I IN 1..working_Rec_Table.COUNT LOOP
        v_unique_key := working_Rec_Table(I).NAME;
        va_novated_trades(v_unique_key).NAME    := working_Rec_Table(I).NAME;
        va_novated_trades(v_unique_key).ID      := working_Rec_Table(I).ID;
     END LOOP; --FOR LOOP

     OPEN db_cursor2 FOR SELECT * FROM va_novated_trades; --ERROR LINE

     CLOSE rec_Cur;
     RETURN db_cursor2;

END test_rep;
/

Answer 1

Basically there is a way to select from a table type in oracle using the TABLE() function

SELECT * FROM table(va_novated_trades);

But this works only for schema table types and on plsql tables (table types defined in the SCHEMA and not in a plsql package):

CREATE TYPE n_trade_rec AS OBJECT
(
    NAME    VARCHAR2(15), 
    ID      NUMBER
);
CREATE TYPE ga_novated_trades AS TABLE OF n_trade_rec;

But I still think you should try to do it all in a query (and/or in the perl script),

For example, there is one field where i have to analyse the 4th
character and then edit other fields accordingly

This can be achieved in the query, could be something like:

select case when substr(one_field, 4, 1) = 'A' then 'A.' || sec_field
            when substr(one_field, 4, 1) = 'B' then 'B.' || sec_field
            else sec_field 
       end as new_sec_field,
       case when substr(one_field, 4, 1) = 'A' then 100 * trd_field
            when substr(one_field, 4, 1) = 'B' then 1000 * trd_field
            else trd_field 
       end as new_trd_field,
       -- and so on
from TESTREPORT