Getting the value of variable dynamically

Question

Hi Gurus,
How can i get a value of a variable dynamically through user input?Is it possible to get it interacively?
my reqiurement is to control my loop according to the user supplied value for the flag variable.
if the user gives the flag as 'Y' loop should continue.else loop should terminate in a PL/SQL block
here is a piece of code
CREATE OR REPLACE procedure c is
flag1 varchar2(10):='Y';
begin
while flag1 <> 'N' loop
dbms_output.put_line('Enter the value.....' );
+*<< Here I have to get the value of flag1 from user .How to get the user value>>*+
end loop;
end;
Please advice
Edited by: user5203944 on Nov 18, 2008 3:01 AM

Answer 1

To add my 2 cents worth you can not get where you want with sqlplus calling PL/SQL
You have 2 problems
SQLPLUS has no loop construct and not much in the way of conditional capabilities.
PL/SQL can not talk to a terminal.
If you use an &variable in an anonymous block, it is evaluated by sqlplus before the parse of the block takes place.
Nothing you do in the block can change its value.
dbms_output.put_line buffers everything output to it and then sqlplus outputs it all after the block completes.
You can accept variables in sqlplus and pass them into an anonymous block for use, but you would have to exit the block if you wanted to ask something based on a condition determined in the block. You would then have no way to re-enter that block within the sqlplus session.
Host language programs do not have this problem. You can use ProC ProCOBOL, OCI, Visual Basic, and web interfaces.
Unless you are on windows you can use a shell script (Unix, Linux or VMS) to do what you want.
You can accept the variable in the script within a loop. You can call sqlplus silently passing the variable on the command line. You can use the variable command to define variables that will be set in pl/sql blocks use selects of these :variables to set defined sqlplus &variables. You can spool files that will then be processed by the shell language. All this can be done in that shell loop.
In other words you can do anything you need. You do need to understand your tools and their limitations. You can not use sqlplus commands in pl/sql for example.
Edited by: Old DBA on Nov 18, 2008 7:31 PM