Question

I’m sure what I want is very simple but I cannot figure out how.

I want :

• To declare some variables and initialize them to certain values
• To excecute a number of selects (predicated by the above variable values) and see the results as if i had executed the results straight on the sqlplus command line

I believe it’s necessary to use the block structure in order that I may declare and make use of variables within the predicates of the queries. Although the examples shown here are quite simple in the real case there are numberous, much more complex SELECT’s.

I tried doing this (forgetting about predicates for a moment) …

DECLARE
    EMP_EMPLOYEE_ID_IN  VARCHAR2(12);
BEGIN
    EXECUTE IMMEDIATE 'SELECT * FROM DEPT WHERE DEPNO';
END;
/

… but when I do that I get to execute the select without seeing the output.

I’ve also tried this …

DECLARE
    EMP_EMPLOYEE_ID_IN  VARCHAR2(12);
BEGIN
    SELECT * FROM DEPT;
END;
/

… but then I get …

PLS-00428: an INTO clause is expected in this SELECT statement

… I really don’t want to have to declare a variable for every column which would appear in my output.

Can anyone tell me how I can execute the SELECTs but simply and easily see the output as if I were on the sqlplus command line, ie to see the same output as if I did this

SQL> SELECT * FROM DEPT;

    DEPTNO DNAME          LOC
---------- -------------- -------------
        10 ACCOUNTING     NEW YORK
        20 RESEARCH       DALLAS
        30 SALES          CHICAGO
        40 OPERATIONS     BOSTON

Thanks

---

---

I have now tested the answer given by Shannon Severance below and found that it will do what I want.

For the sake of later readers I thought it might be useful to show the complete script here.

set line 32000;
set trimspool on;
var V_CURSOR1 REFCURSOR;
var V_CURSOR2 REFCURSOR;
var V_CURSOR3 REFCURSOR;
DECLARE
    DEPT_NUM_IN     VARCHAR2(12);
BEGIN
    DEPT_NUM_IN :=  '10';
    OPEN :V_CURSOR1 FOR SELECT * FROM DEPT;
    OPEN :V_CURSOR2 FOR SELECT * FROM DEPT ORDER BY LOC;
    OPEN :V_CURSOR3 FOR SELECT * FROM DEPT WHERE DEPTNO = DEPT_NUM_IN ORDER BY LOC;
END;
/
print V_CURSOR1
print V_CURSOR2
print V_CURSOR3

Answer 1

From sqlplus, other tools may be different.

First declare a sqlplus refcursor variable

SQL> var l_cursor refcursor

Then open that cursor within a PL/SQL block, where you will have access to declared variables and everything:

SQL> edit
Wrote file afiedt.buf

  1  declare
  2      l_number number;
  3  begin
  4      open :l_cursor for select table_name from all_tables where rownum < 10;
  5* end;
SQL> /

PL/SQL procedure successfully completed.

Notice above that the refcursor variable is prepended with a :, this is because we are binding a sqlplus variable into the PL/SQL anonymous block

Next, use the SQLPLUS print command:

SQL> print l_cursor

TABLE_NAME
------------------------------
ICOL$
CON$
UNDO$
PROXY_ROLE_DATA$
FILE$
UET$
IND$
SEG$
COL$

9 rows selected.