Any idea on this store procedure

Question

Hi,
I was testing a procedure (call it sp_kirk) today and Oracle generate a test that had syntax like this:
declare
xxx varchar2(10);
Begin
xxx := 'yyy';
sp_kirk( xxx => xxx);
end;
I was puzzled by the xxx => xxx syntax, and in fact, it worked just as well if I replaced it with just xxx.
Any idea what the xxx => xxx means?
Any thoughts would be hightly appreciated ..!
Thanks
JP

Answer 1

Oracle generate a testPresumably you mean Oracle SQL Developer generated a test?
The '=>' is used for the 'named notation' form of parameter passing which involves passing values to explicitly named parameters as opposed to the more common 'positional notation' which involves passing all the parameters in order.
In simple cases (such as yours) there is little benefit to named notation other than explicitly documenting the parameter names in the call. For more complex situations involving overloading and defaulted (non-mandatory) parameters named notation gives increased flexibility.