How to dynamicly create a field name AND access it

Question

All,
I am trying to build a code block that will access what amounts to a table structure inside a table. I have 38 occurances if a set of 3 fields. (Source system had an internal array/occurs clause that was converted for our ODS into individual fields) I am returning a single row as a row type and have addressability to all fields. What I am trying to avoid is coding my logic block 38 times, 1 for each occurance.
FOR X IN 1 .. 38 LOOP
V_CAT_CD_X := 'CAT_'||X||'_CD';
End Loop;
The following is the display of the correctly built field:
--> Loop Cat CD: CAT_1_CD Rec count:1 Loop counter:1
--> Loop Cat CD: CAT_2_CD Rec count:1 Loop counter:2
--> Loop Cat CD: CAT_3_CD Rec count:1 Loop counter:3
--> Loop Cat CD: CAT_4_CD Rec count:1 Loop counter:4
My problem is that my row cursor PP1 is addressable hardcoding PP1.CAT_1_CD or PP1.CAT_2_CD ect, however I am having problems using my created string to access the field.
What do I need to do to gain accessability via this method?
I do have the ability to select the column names from the system tables but even then, I am lacking addressability to my ROW type using the selected field name.
Thanks
Greg

Answer 1

Not sure if this is what you are looking for:
SQL> ed
Wrote file afiedt.buf
  1  declare
  2  my_cur SYS_REFCURSOR;
  3  v_rec mytest%rowtype;
  4  cursor c1 is select column_name from all_tab_cols where table_name = 'MYTEST';
  5  v_sql_stmt VARCHAR2(1000) := NULL;
  6  BEGIN
  7  v_sql_stmt := 'SELECT ';
  8  FOR I IN c1 LOOP
  9  v_sql_stmt := v_sql_stmt||I.column_name||',';
10  end loop;
11  v_sql_stmt := RTRIM(v_sql_stmt,',');
12  v_sql_stmt := v_sql_stmt||' FROM mytest';
13  open my_cur for v_sql_stmt;
14  LOOP
15  FETCH my_cur INTO v_rec;
16  EXIT WHEN my_cur%NOTFOUND;
17  dbms_output.put_line(v_rec.a);
18  END LOOP;
19 close my_cur;
20* end;
SQL> /
1
2
PL/SQL procedure successfully completed.
SQL> Edited by: AP on Nov 17, 2010 5:29 AM