How to Return Type from Function

Question

I've defined a type and a function in specification. But package body returns pls-00330 error (invalid use of type name or subtype name). What am I doing wrong? My intent is to write a function which will return a record containing two values. For now, I put "null;" as a placeholder.
--specification
CREATE OR REPLACE PACKAGE res.year_qtr AS
TYPE yq_type IS RECORD
(yr varchar2(2),
qtr varchar2(1));
FUNCTION yq_fun (date_in date)
RETURN yq_type;
END year_qtr;
-body
CREATE OR REPLACE PACKAGE BODY res.year_qtr AS
FUNCTION yq_fun (date_in date)
RETURN yq_type IS
BEGIN
null;
RETURN year_qtr.yq_type; --get error on this line!
END;
END year_qtr;
Edited by: user516543 on Mar 23, 2009 12:17 PM

Answer 1

You need to declare a variable of that type and return the variable.
You can't just return the type as it's not actually a declaration of that type.
--specification
CREATE OR REPLACE PACKAGE res.year_qtr AS
  TYPE yq_type IS RECORD
    (yr varchar2(2),
     qtr varchar2(1));
  FUNCTION yq_fun (date_in date)
    RETURN yq_type;
END year_qtr;
--body
CREATE OR REPLACE PACKAGE BODY res.year_qtr AS
  FUNCTION yq_fun (date_in date) RETURN yq_type IS
    v_ret year_qtr.yq_type;
  BEGIN
    null;
    RETURN v_ret;
  END;
END year_qtr;