Calling functions and inserting tables based on values entered

Question

Hello Everyone,
I am creating a function as below:
create or replace function func(flags in number,Ctry in varchar2) return number
is
maxv number;
flagv number;
begin
flagv:=1;
select max(num) into maxv from A;
if flags =1 then
insert into A(num,nam) values(maxv+1,Upper(Ctry));
else
flagv:=0;
end if;
return flagv;
end;
The function takes two parameters-The first one will be either 0 or 1.The second one will be name of a country.
If the first parameter is 1 then we would insert the country name passed, to the table name A.If its 0 then no insertion occurs and the function would return a value 0.
On compiling the function I get a success!.
When I do a
SQL>select distinct func(0,'UK') from B;
it works well and returns 0
However when I do
SQL>select distinct func(1,'UK') from B;
I expect an output of 1 & also expect UK to be inserted as anew row in the table A.However It throws an error saying "ORA-14551: cannot perform a DML operation inside a query .."
It is very important for me to use select to call the function, as my application would fire a select with that function and based on the value entered would insert or not insert at the back end.
Is there any way out to do this??
variable temps number
exec :number :=func(1,'UK');
does work but I cant use this in my application.
Hope you can help! Thanks!

Answer 1

create or replace function func(flags in number,Ctry in varchar2) return number
is
PRAGMA AUTONOMOUS_TRANSACTION;
maxv number;
flagv number;
begin
flagv:=1;
select max(num) into maxv from A;
if flags =1 then
insert into A(num,nam) values(maxv+1,Upper(Ctry));
COMMIT;
else
flagv:=0;
end if;
return flagv;
end;
Is the above changes in BOLD enough or I need to do something else too in order to incorporate the autonomous transaction??
I am not too familiar with autonomous transaction.Could you please suggest the changes I need if any more required??
Thanks a ton for your suggestions!
Message was edited by:
user579245
Message was edited by:
user579245