Help - Exception handling

Question

Hi All,
Below is my pl/sql block.
My question is why PL/SQL cannot handle the exception, and instead the exception is propagated to SQL Plus?
I'm using oracle 8.1.7.0
TIA.
SQL> begin
2 select * from emp;
3 exception
4 when others then
5 dbms_output.put_line('ERROR !!!');
6
7 end;
8 /
select * from emp;
ERROR at line 2:
ORA-06550: line 2, column 3:
PLS-00428: an INTO clause is expected in this SELECT statement
ORA-06550: line 2, column 3:
PL/SQL: SQL Statement ignored

Answer 1

There is no runtime exception to handle because this is not even a valid PL/SQL anonymous block. Every SELECT statement in PL/SQL must be either SELECTed INTO a variable or exist as part of a cursor.
If you explain what you are trying to do here, we can offer some suggestions.
Simple SELECT INTO example:
declare
  v_empno  emp.empno%type;
begin
  select empno
    into v_empno
    from emp
   where empno = 1;
  dbms_output.put_line(v_empno);
exception
  when no_data_found then
    dbms_output.put_line('Employee number 1 does not exist');
end;
/