ROWTYPE and "Too many values" error...

Question

I'm in the middle of trying to understand the inner workings of %ROWTYPE and how I can copy the structure of a table with it. I think I'm understanding the gist of it, but I continue to fail in pinpointing the actual values I try to insert with an example tutorial I'm using at the moment and was hoping someone could help me understand my problem better so that I can bridge this mental gap I seem to be slipping into...
That said, I have the following table: ct_employee
The columns of this table (and their schema settings) are as follows:
empno - NUMBER(4,0)
ename - VARCHAR2(20)
job - VARCHAR2(20)
mgr - NUMBER(4,0)
hiredate - DATE
sal - NUMBER(7,2)
comm - NUMBER(7,2)
ct_department - NUMBER(2,0)The SQL I'm using in all this is the following:
SET VERIFY OFF
DEFINE emp_num = 7369;
DECLARE
  emp_rec ct_retired_emps%ROWTYPE;
BEGIN
  SELECT *
  INTO emp_rec
  FROM ct_employee
  WHERE empno = &emp_num;
  emp_rec.leavedate := SYSDATE;
  UPDATE ct_retired_emps SET ROW = emp_rec
  WHERE empno = &emp_num;
END;As I hope you can tell from the above, I'm trying to create a variable (emp_rec) to store the structure of ct_employee where upon I then copy a record into emp_rec if and only if the empno column from ct_employee matches that of the emp_num "7369".
I'm using SQL*PLUS with 10g in all this (+a program I love, by the way; it's really easy to use and very informative+) and when I press the "Run Script" button, I receive the following Script Output:
Error report:
ORA-06550: line 6, column 3:PL/SQL: ORA-00913: too many values
ORA-06550: line 4, column 3:
PL/SQL: SQL Statement ignored
06550. 00000 - "line %s, column %s:\n%s"
*Cause:    Usually a PL/SQL compilation error.
*Action:>
What I translate from this is that there's either a column number mismatch or else there's some value being attempted to be inserted into the variable I created that isn't matching the structure of the variable.
Anyway, if someone around here could help me with this, you would make my day.

Answer 1

It's still not updating the table. :(
Here's where I am...
I currently have the following pl/sql:
SET VERIFY OFF
DEFINE emp_num = 7369;
DECLARE
  emp_rec ct_retired_emps%ROWTYPE;
BEGIN
  SELECT *
  INTO emp_rec
  FROM ct_employee
  WHERE empno = &emp_num;
  emp_rec.leavedate := SYSDATE;
  UPDATE ct_retired_emps SET ROW = emp_rec
  WHERE empno = &emp_num;
END;I'm trying to avoid as much hard-coding as possible, hence my use of the all selector, but because of this, SQL*Plus is now giving me a run-time error of the following:
Error report:ORA-06550: line 6, column 3:
PL/SQL: ORA-00913: too many values
ORA-06550: line 4, column 3:
PL/SQL: SQL Statement ignored
06550. 00000 - "line %s, column %s:\n%s"
*Cause:    Usually a PL/SQL compilation error.
*Action:>
So to remedy this, I then try the following revised PL/SQL:
SET VERIFY OFFDEFINE emp_num = 7369;
DECLARE
emp_rec ct_retired_emps%ROWTYPE;
BEGIN
SELECT empno, ename, job, mgr, hiredate, SYSDATE as leavdate, sal, comm, ct_department
INTO emp_rec
FROM ct_employee
WHERE empno = &emp_num;
UPDATE ct_retired_emps SET ROW = emp_rec
WHERE empno = &emp_num;
END;>
This time, everything runs smoothly, however, no information is updated into the ct_retired_emps! Ha!
I've verified that there's a record in ct_employee that has "7369" for its empno column value, so there should be no missing value concern from all this. The only other thing I can think of is that there must be something askew with my logic, but as to what, I have no clue. Below are my columns for both tables:
ct_employee -
empno, ename, job, mgr, hiredate, sal, comm, ct_department
ct_retired_emps -
empno, ename, job, mgr, hiredate, leavedate, sal, comm, deptno
My immediate questions:
1.) I know nothing about debugging or troubleshooting PL/SQL, but I do know that I need to review the contents of the emp_rec variable above to see what all is inside it so that I can better assess what's going on here. I've tried to use DBMS_OUTPUT.PUT_LINE(emp_rec) but this does nothing and only creates another run-time error. What's a way in which I can output the contents of this regardless of run-time success? Would I need to code in an EXCEPTION section and THEN use DBMS_OUTPUT...?
2.) SELECTING * in the first snippet above meant that I was disallowed the use of the emp_rec.leavedate := SYSDATE; after the SELECT. How might oneself SELECT * AND+ use emp_rec.leavedate := SYSDATE; in the same EXECUTION section?
3.) With everything I've provided here, do you see any obvious issues?
It doesn't take a genius to realize I'm new at this stuff, but I am trying to provide everything I can to learn here so if any of you can help this poor guy out, he'd be very grateful.