Passing arrays to procedure

Question

How can i pass arrays in a procedure as IN parameter
for eg.
If I have a procedure which takes an input login id and a input status
     procedure test(loginId IN varchar, status IN varchar)
     -- the procedure does insert and update using the input login id and input status
Now, suppose i have a bunch of input login ids and a bunch of status, how can i pass the login id and status values as an array to the procedure instead of calling the procedure in a loop?

Answer 1

This is best done using an object type and collection type, so you can make use of bulk SQL to perform the DML. I've given a short demo below:-
First your target table...
SQL> create table my_table ( id number, status varchar2(1) );
Table created.Now we create an object type ( this defines the record structure for your parameter ). We then create a nested table type (collection) based on this record structure:-
SQL> create type login_record_ot as object
  2  (  id     number
  3  ,  status varchar2(1)
  4  );
  5  /
Type created.
SQL> create type login_records_ntt as table of login_record_ot;
  2  /
Type created.Now a demo package with a procedure to insert the input collection into the target table. This uses the TABLE expression ( combined with CAST just in case you are on 8i )...
SQL> create package pkg as
  2     procedure insert_records (
  3               login_records_in in login_records_ntt
  4               );
  5  end pkg;
  6  /
Package created.
SQL> create package body pkg as
  2 
  3     procedure insert_records (
  4               login_records_in in login_records_ntt
  5               ) is
  6     begin
  7        insert into my_table ( id, status )
  8        select x.id
  9        ,      x.status
10        from   table( cast( login_records_in as login_records_ntt )) x;
11        dbms_output.put_line( sql%rowcount || ' rows inserted.' );
12     end insert_records;
13 
14  end pkg;
15  /
Package body created.Now to use it. I'll load a dummy variable with a collection of IDs/statuses and pass them to the pkg.insert_records procedure...
SQL> declare
  2     some_records login_records_ntt := login_records_ntt(
  3                                          login_record_ot( 1, 'X' ),
  4                                          login_record_ot( 2, 'Y' ),
  5                                          login_record_ot( 3, 'Z' ),
  6                                          login_record_ot( 4, 'A' ),
  7                                          login_record_ot( 5, 'B' )
  8                                          );
  9  begin
10     pkg.insert_records( some_records );
11  end;
12  /
5 rows inserted.
PL/SQL procedure successfully completed.
SQL>
SQL> select * from my_table;
        ID S
         1 X
         2 Y
         3 Z
         4 A
         5 BRegards
Adrian