FORALL stmt

Question

Hi there,
I 'm studying FORALL statement and I ran into a problem I don't understand.
I have a table:
create table employee_1 as select employee_id, last_name,first_name
from employees
where 1=2;
And I want to move the data from HR employees to it using FORALL.
How can I redo this, so I don't have to use dynamic SQL?
declare
type ln_type is table of varchar2(30)
index by pls_integer;
type id_type is table of number
index by pls_integer;
ln ln_type;
fn ln_type;
eid id_type;
v_counter integer:=0;
begin
for r in (select employee_id,last_name, first_name
from employees where employee_id >200)
loop
v_counter:=v_counter+1;
ln(v_counter):=r.last_name;
fn(v_counter):=r.first_name;
eid(v_counter):=r.employee_id;
end loop;
forall i in eid.first..eid.last
execute immediate
'insert into employees_1(employee_id,last_name,first_name)
values (:1,:2,:3)'
using eid(i),ln(i),fn(i);
end;
This works, but I want to write it with regular SQL (if that is possible?)
I tried it like this:
forall i in eid.first..eid.last
insert into employees_1(employee_id,last_name,first_name)
values (eid(i),ln(i),fn(i));
end;
but I keep getting
PLS-00430: FORALL iteration variable I is not allowed in this context
I googled the error and I got
Cause: FORALL iteration variable can only be used as a
subscript. It cannot be used directly or as a part of an
expression.
Action: Use FORALL variable only as a collection subscript.
Can somebody explain this to me in a more understandable manner?
And fix my code for if possible!
All help appreciated

Answer 1

Jana Kralova wrote:
By the way, you wouldn't by any chance know why I am not able to use
individual column table types. This is a good one. There is nothing wrong with using individual column table types, just using built-in function name as variable name can sometimes fool you quite a bit:
SQL> declare
  2      type ln_type is table of varchar2(30)
  3        index by pls_integer;
  4      type id_type is table of number
  5        index by pls_integer;
  6      ln ln_type;
  7      fn ln_type;
  8      eid id_type;
  9      v_counter integer:=0;
10  begin
11      select  employee_id,
12              last_name,
13              first_name
14        bulk collect
15        into eid,
16             ln,
17             fn
18        from hr.employees
19        where employee_id >200;
20        v_counter:=v_counter+1;
21        forall i in eid.first..eid.last
22          insert into employees_1(employee_id,last_name,first_name)
23          values (eid(i),ln(i),fn(i));
24  end;
25  /
        values (eid(i),ln(i),fn(i));
ERROR at line 23:
ORA-06550: line 23, column 27:
PLS-00430: FORALL iteration variable I is not allowed in this context
SQL> declare
  2      type ln_type is table of varchar2(30)
  3        index by pls_integer;
  4      type id_type is table of number
  5        index by pls_integer;
  6      lnm ln_type;
  7      fn ln_type;
  8      eid id_type;
  9      v_counter integer:=0;
10  begin
11      select  employee_id,
12              last_name,
13              first_name
14        bulk collect
15        into eid,
16             lnm,
17             fn
18        from hr.employees
19        where employee_id >200;
20        v_counter:=v_counter+1;
21        forall i in eid.first..eid.last
22          insert into employees_1(employee_id,last_name,first_name)
23          values (eid(i),lnm(i),fn(i));
24  end;
25  /
PL/SQL procedure successfully completed.
SQL> Your problem is LN(I) is interpreted as built-in natural logarithm function LN with I as function parameter.
SY.