Exception Handling Confusion!

Question

I require the following very basic functionality from a function.
Create or Replace function fnc_get_col3 (a in number, b in number)
return number
as
begin
return select col3 from TAB1 where col1 = a and col2 = b;
end fnc_get_util;
My question is that can I use the regular exception handling (like 'No data found' and 'Too many rows') in above function when i am using the return and select statement in same line
OR do i have to recreate this function as
Create or Replace function fnc_get_col3 (a in number, b in number)
return number
as
abc number(5);
begin
select col3 into abc from TAB1 where col1 = a and col2 = b;
return abc;
exception
when no data found then
dbms_ouput.put_line 'No data found'
end fnc_get_util;
Thanks in Advance

Answer 1

Why do you believe it is syntactically valid to return a value this way? The first function does not compile and cannot compile so there is no exception handling to discuss
SQL> create or replace function f1
  2    return number
  3  is
  4  begin
  5    return select count(*) from emp;
  6  end;
  7  /
Warning: Function created with compilation errors.
SQL> sho err
Errors for FUNCTION F1:
LINE/COL ERROR
5/10     PLS-00103: Encountered the symbol "SELECT" when expecting one of
         the following:
         ( - + ; case mod new not null <an identifier>
         <a double-quoted delimited-identifier> <a bind variable>
         continue avg count current exists max min prior sql stddev
         sum variance execute forall merge time timestamp interval
         date <a string literal with character set specification>
         <a number> <a single-quoted SQL string> pipe
         <an alternatively-quoted string literal with character set
         specification>
         <an alternYou would need your SELECT statement to select data into a local variable and to return that local variable as you are doing in your second implementation. It would not make sense, however, to have an exception handler that simply uses DBMS_OUTPUT to display a message-- you should only catch an exception if you can do something meaningful with it.
Justin