Create view in pl/sql

Question

Hi all,
I try to create a view from PL/SQL where the create statement is spread on an associative array. The reason why I use an array is that the statement to create the view may be very long.
The array is defined as follows:
TYPE ARRAY IS TABLE OF VARCHAR2(4000) INDEX BY BINARY_INTEGER;
g_data ARRAY;
I use procedures like put_line() and get_line() to access the data in the array. Alle these procedures and the array is packed in a package p.
Here is an example of the usage:
BEGIN
p.delete_array;
p.put_line('create or replace view del_view');
p.put_line('as select sysdate from dual');
IF (p.get_line_count>0) THEN
FOR x IN 1..p.get_line_count LOOP
dbms_output.put_line(p.get_line(x));
END LOOP;
END IF;
end;
Now I want to create a view from the data in the array. But I don't know how to use EXECUTE IMMEDIATE in this case. Can anybody help me?
I use 10R2.
Thank you very much in advance,
VD

Answer 1

Scripts are, in my opinion, to be preferred over dynamic DDL every time. They are reliable, performant, tested and most importantly something that can be stored in source control. Configuration management is a severely under-appreciated aspect of database definition.
Although re-reading your post it seems to be that you are still generating the view dynamically and just getting the user to run the script by hand. That is even worse than dynamic DDL because it inconveniences your users as well. Tsk tsk.
it would be nice to know how to do the EXECUTE IMMEDIATE with an array Step through the array and concatenate the text into a single statement. Note that EXECUTE IMMEDIATE can only handle varchar2 variables, so you would be limited to 32767 characters. Anything larger would require DBMS_SQL. I really don't think such large statements ought to assembled and executed dynamically anyway. But I'm just old-fashioned, I guess.
Cheers, APC