One element too many on a cursor?

Question

Hello,
I'm populating a cursor like this:
CURSOR c_anunciantes IS
//some query
I now the result of the query for sure. However, when I try to access the cursor and print it's elements, it prints the last element twice; I think I'm probable misusing %NOTFOUND (yes, I'm a newbie):
LOOP
          EXIT WHEN c_anunciantes%NOTFOUND
FETCH c_anunciantes INTO aux;
     IF (c_anunciantes%ROWCOUNT=0) THEN
               raise_application_error(-20001,'No results!');
     END IF;
dbms_output.put_line(aux);
END LOOP;
CLOSE c_anunciantes;
BTW; is there any way to find out the number of elements on a cursor before using it?
Thanks in advance :)

Answer 1

Hello ,
You have for example 4 records.
You fetch 4th record, then you print with dbms_output
( your if - condition doesn't work, because sql%rowcount returns the total cumulative number of records).
Then you check EXIT WHEN NOTFOUND.
It returns false, because it finds anything,
and then you try to fetch the 5th record, and only here you have
SQL%NOTFOUND. But you didn't check it here and prints 4th record once more.
at first FETCH, and then EXIT WHEN.
You don't need the IF- Block in loop.
LOOP
FETCH c_anunciantes INTO aux;
EXIT WHEN c_anunciantes%NOTFOUND
dbms_output.put_line(aux);
END LOOP;
CLOSE c_anunciantes;
It is better to write:
FOR I IN (//select from your query)
LOOP
dbms_output.putline(i.aux);
END LOOP;
You don't need:
- cursor declaration
- cursor open
- fetch
- check for EXIT NOTFOUND.
- cursor close
Oracle does it for you :-)
Regards
Dmytro Dekhtyaryuk