Question

I’m quite new to Oracle SQL (though I’ve written a fair bit of SQL) and am having trouble embedding a simple SELECT statement in a function. It feels like SQL ABC but I can’t seem to get it 🙁

I think I’m using PL-SQL

Here’s what I have so far:

create or replace FUNCTION GET_GROUP_BY_ID RETURN VARCHAR2
AS my_result
BEGIN

  SELECT fav_group.name 
    INTO my_result 
    FROM fav_group 
   WHERE fav_group.id = 12345

  RETURN my_result;

END GET_GROUP_BY_ID;

As I said, I’ve tried a LOT of variations on the above code by looking at code examples on google but can’t seem to get it right.

Answer 1

Use:

CREATE OR REPLACE FUNCTION GET_GROUP_BY_ID 
RETURN VARCHAR2 AS

  my_result FAV_GROUP.NAME%TYPE;

BEGIN

  SELECT fav_group.name 
    INTO my_result 
    FROM fav_group 
   WHERE fav_group.id = 12345;

  RETURN my_result;

END GET_GROUP_BY_ID;

The problem was my_result was being used as a variable, but never declared.

I used the %TYPE notation to declare the variable so it used the same data type as the column being used to populate it. If the column data type ever changes, the variable automatically changes to suit — no concerns with data type issues after changes to the table, unless you remove the column entirely.