Calling a Procedure in BIP 10.1.3.2

Question

Hi All,
I am creating a report, which first calls a procedure to populate the custom table and then it uses the custom table to create the report.
My Question to you all is, is there a way to call a procedure first and then call the table from BIP.
Thanks,
Madhavan G V

Answer 1

whoa, whoa,whoa.
You should use a pipelined function. Then you can cast a pl/sql table as and actually table. It will save you a read and write to disk, plus the table objects, and there is no need to worry about commits, rollbacks and clean up. This is trully a godsend for reporting, however, because of the anonymity of pipelined functions nobody ever uses it, which is such a shame as it is one of the most powerful tools in pl/sql (it's not just for ETL). Below is some sample code.
good luck,
Ike
Here's an example:
SELECT
GMD_SPEC_TESTS.SPEC_ID
,GMD_SPEC_TESTS.TEST_ID
,GMD_SPEC_TESTS.TEST_METHOD_ID
FROM
GMD_QC_TESTS
,GMD_SPEC_TESTS
,table(vca_rm_spec_pkg.get_valid_tests_table(:p_report_type, GMD_QC_TESTS.TEST_CODE, GMD_QC_TESTS.TEST_DESC)) test_tab
WHERE
GMD_QC_TESTS.TEST_ID = GMD_SPEC_TESTS.TEST_ID
AND NVL(GMD_QC_TESTS.DELETE_MARK, 0 ) != 1
and GMD_SPEC_TESTS.SPEC_ID=:HEADER_SPEC_ID
and test_tab.test_code = GMD_QC_TESTS.TEST_CODE
and GMD_QC_TESTS.TEST_CODE <> 'QAPRV'
ORDER BY TEST_CODE
==================================
==package body
==================================
function get_valid_tests_table (p_report_type in varchar2, p_test_code in varchar2 , p_test_desc in varchar2)
RETURN test_tbl_undef PIPELINED
is
l_test_rec vca_rm_spec_pkg.test_rec;
begin
G_PROC_NAME :='get_valid_tests_table';
if p_report_type = 'SEARCH' then
if g_test_tbl.count <> 0 then
     for i in g_test_tbl.first..g_test_tbl.last loop
          l_test_rec := g_test_tbl(i);
               pipe row(l_test_rec);     
     end loop;
end if;
else
--this is the summary, what comes goes out.
     l_test_rec.test_code := p_test_code;
     l_test_rec.test_desc := p_test_desc;
     pipe row(l_test_rec);     
end if;
return;
end get_valid_tests_table;
procedure set_valid_tests_table (p_test_code in varchar2, p_test_desc in varchar2)
is
begin
G_PROC_NAME :='set_valid_tests_table';
if g_test_tbl.count is null or g_test_tbl.count = 0 then
g_test_tbl(1).test_code := p_test_code;
g_test_tbl(1).test_desc := p_test_desc;
else
g_test_tbl(g_test_tbl.count+1).test_code := p_test_code;
g_test_tbl(g_test_tbl.count).test_desc := p_test_desc;
end if;
return;
end set_valid_tests_table;
==============================
==package spec
==============================
type test_rec is record (test_code varchar2(30),
test_desc varchar2(150)
type test_tbl_undef is table of test_rec;
type test_tbl is table of test_rec INDEX BY BINARY_INTEGER;
g_test_tbl test_tbl;
--returns a pl/sql table pipelined, query casts as table  
function get_valid_tests_table (p_report_type in varchar2, p_test_code in varchar2, p_test_desc in varchar2)
RETURN test_tbl_undef PIPELINED;
--returns a pl/sql table pipelined, query casts as table  
procedure set_valid_tests_table (p_test_code in varchar2, p_test_desc in varchar2); --return varchar2;