Question

I’m trying to understand different ways of getting table data from Oracle stored procedures / functions using JDBC. The six ways are the following ones:

1. procedure returning a schema-level table type as an OUT parameter
2. procedure returning a package-level table type as an OUT parameter
3. procedure returning a package-level cursor type as an OUT parameter
4. function returning a schema-level table type
5. function returning a package-level table type
6. function returning a package-level cursor type

Here are some examples in PL/SQL:

-- schema-level table type
CREATE TYPE t_type AS OBJECT (val VARCHAR(4));
CREATE TYPE t_table AS TABLE OF t_type;

CREATE OR REPLACE PACKAGE t_package AS
  -- package level table type
  TYPE t_table IS TABLE OF some_table%rowtype;
  -- package level cursor type
  TYPE t_cursor IS REF CURSOR;
END library_types;

-- and example procedures:
CREATE PROCEDURE p_1 (result OUT t_table);
CREATE PROCEDURE p_2 (result OUT t_package.t_table);
CREATE PROCEDURE p_3 (result OUT t_package.t_cursor);
CREATE FUNCTION f_4 RETURN t_table;
CREATE FUNCTION f_5 RETURN t_package.t_table;
CREATE FUNCTION f_6 RETURN t_package.t_cursor;

I have succeeded in calling 3, 4, and 6 with JDBC:

// Not OK: p_1 and p_2
CallableStatement call = connection.prepareCall("{ call p_1(?) }");
call.registerOutParameter(1, OracleTypes.CURSOR);
call.execute(); // Raises PLS-00306. Obviously CURSOR is the wrong type

// OK: p_3
CallableStatement call = connection.prepareCall("{ call p_3(?) }");
call.registerOutParameter(1, OracleTypes.CURSOR);
call.execute();
ResultSet rs = (ResultSet) call.getObject(1); // Cursor results

// OK: f_4
PreparedStatement stmt = connection.prepareStatement("select * from table(f_4)");
ResultSet rs = stmt.executeQuery();

// Not OK: f_5
PreparedStatement stmt = connection.prepareStatement("select * from table(f_5)");
stmt.executeQuery(); // Raises ORA-00902: Invalid data type

// OK: f_6
CallableStatement call = connection.prepareCall("{ ? = call f_6 }");
call.registerOutParameter(1, OracleTypes.CURSOR);
call.execute();
ResultSet rs = (ResultSet) call.getObject(1); // Cursor results

So obviously, I’m having trouble understanding

1. How to retrieve schema-level and package-level table types from OUT parameters in stored procedures
2. How to retrieve package-level table types from stored functions

I can’t seem to find any documentation on this, as everyone always uses cursors instead of table types. Maybe because it’s not possible? I prefer table types, though, because they are formally defined and can be discovered using the dictionary views (at least the schema-level table types).

Note: obviously, I could write a wrapper function returning the OUT parameters and package-level table types. But I’d prefer the clean solution.

Answer 1

You can’t access PLSQL objects (cases 2 & 5 = package-level objects) from java, see “java – passing array in oracle stored procedure”. You can however access SQL types (case 1 and 4).

To get OUT parameters from PL/SQL to java, you can use the method described in one of Tom Kyte’s thread using OracleCallableStatement. Your code will have an additional step since you’re retrieving a table of Object instead of a table of VARCHAR.

Here’s a demo using Table of SQL Object, first the setup:

SQL> CREATE TYPE t_type AS OBJECT (val VARCHAR(4));
  2  /
Type created

SQL> CREATE TYPE t_table AS TABLE OF t_type;
  2  /
Type created

SQL> CREATE OR REPLACE PROCEDURE p_sql_type (p_out OUT t_table) IS
  2  BEGIN
  3     p_out := t_table(t_type('a'), t_type('b'));
  4  END;
  5  /
Procedure created

The actual java class (using dbms_output.put_line to log because I will call it from SQL, use System.out.println if called from java):

SQL> CREATE OR REPLACE
  2  AND COMPILE JAVA SOURCE NAMED "ArrayDemo"
  3  as
  4  import java.sql.*;
  5  import oracle.sql.*;
  6  import oracle.jdbc.driver.*;
  7  
  8  public class ArrayDemo {
  9     
 10     private static void log(String s) throws SQLException {
 11        PreparedStatement ps =
 12           new OracleDriver().defaultConnection().prepareStatement
 13           ( "begin dbms_output.put_line(:x); end;" );
 14        ps.setString(1, s);
 15        ps.execute();
 16        ps.close();
 17     }
 18  
 19     public static void getArray() throws SQLException {
 20  
 21        Connection conn = new OracleDriver().defaultConnection();
 22  
 23        OracleCallableStatement cs =
 24           (OracleCallableStatement)conn.prepareCall
 25           ( "begin p_sql_type(?); end;" );
 26        cs.registerOutParameter(1, OracleTypes.ARRAY, "T_TABLE");
 27        cs.execute();
 28        ARRAY array_to_pass = cs.getARRAY(1);
 29  
 30        /*showing content*/
 31        Datum[] elements = array_to_pass.getOracleArray();
 32  
 33        for (int i=0;i<elements.length;i++){
 34           Object[] element = ((STRUCT) elements[i]).getAttributes();
 35           String value = (String)element[0];
 36           log("array(" + i + ").val=" + value);
 37        }
 38     }
 39  }
 40  /
Java created

Let’s call it:

SQL> CREATE OR REPLACE
  2  PROCEDURE show_java_calling_plsql
  3  AS LANGUAGE JAVA
  4  NAME 'ArrayDemo.getArray()';
  5  /

Procedure created

SQL> EXEC show_java_calling_plsql;

array(0).val=a
array(1).val=b