Accessing a returned SYS_REFCURSOR

Question

Hi,
i have a problem accessing records in a weak sys_refcursor (that was returned from another function) inside a PL/SQL function. I alwys get a "PLS-00487: Invalid reference to variable 'REC2'" where rec2 is my loop record variable.
Here is a simplified test which shows the same behaviour (the problem is marked in master_report):
TYPE resType AS OBJECT (
c1 VARCHAR2(80),
c2 VARCHAR2(80),
c3 VARCHAR2(80)
TYPE resTable AS TABLE OF resType;
CREATE OR REPLACE FUNCTION REPORT_01 (uId PLS_INTEGER)
RETURN SYS_REFCURSOR
IS
st_cursor SYS_REFCURSOR;
BEGIN
-- Do various things, builds a dynamic sql query based in input parameters
OPEN st_cursor FOR 'SELECT * FROM t1 LEFT JOIN t2 ON t1.id=t2.id LEFT JOIN t3 ON t1.id = t3.id';
return st_cursor;
END REPORT_01;
CREATE OR REPLACE FUNCTION MASTER_REPORT (repId PLS_INTEGER)
RETURN resTable PIPELINED
IS
res resType := resType(NULL,NULL,NULL);
BEGIN
     FOR rec in
     ( SELECT * FROM report WHERE REP_ID = repId )
     LOOP
          IF rec.basisreport_key = 'basisreport.einsaetzeimunternehmen' THEN
-- report_01 returns an open sys_refcursor
               FOR rec2 IN report_01(rec.ben_id)
               LOOP
-- PROBLEM HERE: "Invalid reference to variable 'REC2'"
                    res.c1 := rec2.personalnummer;
                    res.c2 := rec2.name;
                    res.c3 := rec2.type;
PIPE ROW(
END LOOP;
END IF;
END LOOP;
END MASTER_REPORT;
So my question is: How am i supposed to acces the contents of the returned ref cursor?
Thanks.
Ulrich Petri

Answer 1

Hello
Aha! Sorry, I forgot that for it to work you have to select the columns "as" the object type like so:
SQL> set serveroutput on
SQL> CREATE OR REPLACE TYPE resType AS OBJECT (
  2  c1 VARCHAR2(80),
  3  c2 VARCHAR2(80),
  4  c3 VARCHAR2(80)
  5  )
  6  /
Type created.
SQL> DECLARE
  2
  3     my_cursor               sys_refcursor;
  4
  5     res                             resType;
  6
  7  BEGIN
  8
  9     OPEN my_cursor FOR 'SELECT ''C1'',''C2'',''C3'' FROM DUAL';
10
11     FETCH my_cursor INTO res;
12
13  END;
14  /
DECLARE
ERROR at line 1:
ORA-00932: inconsistent datatypes: expected UDT got CHAR
ORA-06512: at line 11
SQL> DECLARE
  2
  3     my_cursor               sys_refcursor;
  4
  5     res                             resType;
  6
  7  BEGIN
  8
  9     OPEN my_cursor FOR 'SELECT resType(''C1'',''C2'',''C3'') FROM DUAL';
10
11     FETCH my_cursor INTO res;
12
13     DBMS_OUTPUT.put_line(res.c1);
14     DBMS_OUTPUT.put_line(res.c2);
15     DBMS_OUTPUT.put_line(res.c3);
16
17  END;
18  /
C1
C2
C3
PL/SQL procedure successfully completed.HTH
David