Procedure with table as parameter

Question

I have to write a stored procedure to which to pass a table as parameter.
As far as I know the only way to write a procedure working on a table as parameter is to write it by using Dynamic SQL (execute immediate) so as to manage the variable that contains the table. Is there any other way to do it? My further problem is that I should open a cursor on the table and make some operations with the records. Does it mean I should write something long like this?:
Procedure Prc (v_table In cat.table_name%Type)
Is
query             varchar2(1000);
Begin
query := 'for cur in (select a, b, c from '||v_table||') loop '||
*'......; '||*
*'......; '||*
*'......; '||*
*'end loop';*
execute immediate query;
End Prc;
But it looks a bit hard and complex to write the whole code putting it in a unique variable query. Let me know whether I've chosen the unique and right way to do it or whether there's some better way.
I remind you the (unfortunately) I work on Oracle 8i
Thanks in advance!

Answer 1

If you have tables with identical column names, this means the design of your application is plain wrong, and those tables should be merged into one table, with an extra column to discriminate between the various 'tables'.
When you have a subtype/supertype situation, making sure the various subtypes are in one table is much better, than setting up separate tables, which result in scalability issues, like having to use dynamic sql everywhere.
If you are not yet aware of it: dynamic sql means parsing, and parsing is a serialization device.
Ok, on your way to hell, you can not generate dynamically cursor for loops,
but you would use (providing you would read the PL/SQL reference manual)
native dynamic sql
aka
open cursor <cursor variable> for :sqlstring;
But you are up to disaster and angry end-users.
Sybrand Bakker
Senior Oracle DBA