Open sys_refcursor for select from table variable?

Question

Hi,
I've got a challenge for you! :-)
I've got a procedure that has a lot of logic to determine what data should be loaded into a table variable. Because of various application constraints, i can not create a global temporary table. Instead, i'd like to create a table variable and populate it with stuff as i go through the procedure.
The end result of the procedure is that i must be able to pass the results back as a sys_refcursor. This is a requirement that is beyond my control as well.
Is there a way to make this sort of procedure work?
Create Or Replace Procedure Xtst
Mu_Cur In Out Sys_Refcursor
Is
Type Xdmlrectype Is Record (Col1 Varchar2(66));
Type Xdmltype Is Table Of Xdmlrectype;
Rtn Xdmltype;
Begin
Select Internal_Id Bulk Collect Into Rtn From Zc_State;
open mu_cur for select col1 from table(rtn);
end;
11/42 PLS-00642: local collection types not allowed in SQL statements
11/36 PL/SQL: ORA-22905: cannot access rows from a non-nested table item
11/19 PL/SQL: SQL Statement ignored
Show Errors;

Answer 1

Not anything i'd want to personally implement.
But for educational purposes only of course....
create table this_will_be_gross
   column1 number,
   column2 varchar2(30)
insert into this_will_be_gross values (1, 'begin the ugliness');
insert into this_will_be_gross values (2, 'end the ugliness');
variable x refcursor;
ME_XE?
declare
   Rtn sys.ODCIVARCHAR2LIST;
BEGIN
   SELECT
      column1 || '-' || column2 Bulk Collect
   INTO
      Rtn
   FROM
      this_will_be_gross;
   OPEN :x FOR
   SELECT 
      regexp_substr (column_value, '[^-]+', 1, 1) as column1,
      regexp_substr (column_value, '[^-]+', 1, 2) as column2      
   FROM TABLE(CAST(rtn AS sys.ODCIVARCHAR2LIST));
end;
17  /
PL/SQL procedure successfully completed.
Elapsed: 00:00:00.09
ME_XE?
ME_XE?print :x
COLUMN1                        COLUMN2
1                              begin the ugliness
2                              end the ugliness
2 rows selected.
Elapsed: 00:00:00.11In the above example i 'knew' that a hypen was a safe character to use to break up my data elements (as it would not be found anywhere in the data itself).
I would strongly encourage you not to implement something like this. I realize it's tempting when you are working in strict environments where it can take a serious battle to get structures like temporary tables or SQL Types created, but that's really the proper approach to be taking.