Can Function Return more than One Values ??

Question

Hi Experts,
I would like to ask you Can Function Return more than one values. I Used Function with Out and In out parameter and its working Fine..
1. what is harm using Out and In out parameter in function
2. if we can use Out and In out parameter in Function so what is deffernce between procedure and Function.
3. Is there any Other Way Though which we can return more the One values in Function.
Please advice me...
Thanks
Umesh Goel

Answer 1

Yes/No.
You can return multiple value from function. But, in PL/SQL and not in a SQL.
The following examples demonstrate that -
SQL*Plus: Release 9.2.0.1.0 - Production on Wed Mar 28 17:41:15 2007
Copyright (c) 1982, 2002, Oracle Corporation.  All rights reserved.
Connected to:
Oracle Database 10g Enterprise Edition Release 10.2.0.1.0 - Production
With the Partitioning, OLAP and Data Mining options
SQL> create or replace package glob
  2  as
  3    b varchar2(20);
  4    c varchar2(20);
  5  end;
  6  /
Package created.
SQL>
SQL> create or replace function test_mul_out(a in number)
  2  return number
  3  is
  4    cursor c1(eno in number)
  5    is
  6      select ename,job,sal
  7   from emp
  8   where empno = eno;
  9  
10    rec c1%rowtype;
11    d  number(10);
12  begin
13    open c1(a);
14    loop
15      fetch c1 into rec;
16      exit when c1%notfound;
17       glob.b:= rec.ename;
18    glob.c:= rec.job;
19    d:= rec.sal;
20    end loop;
21    close c1;
22    return d;
23  end;
24  /
Function created.
SQL> set serveroutput on
SQL>
SQL> declare
  2    zz  number(10);
  3  begin
  4    select test_mul_out(7777)
  5    into zz
  6    from dual;
  7    
  8    dbms_output.put_line('Ename: '||glob.b);
  9    dbms_output.put_line('Job: '||glob.c);
10    dbms_output.put_line('Sal: '||zz);
11  end;
12  /
Ename: Avik
Job: CLERK
Sal: 3456
PL/SQL procedure successfully completed.
SQL> Regards.
Satyaki De.