Sys_refcursor from a table variable with columns per row not fixed

Question

i am creating a crosstab aggregation report where the number of columns in a table is determined at runtime from the dataset.
so, i have:
type strArray is table of varchar2(32767);
type strArray2 is table of strArray index by pls_integer;
i want to return a sys_refcursor (created from a strArray2 type variable) so a BIRT .rptdesign file can use it.
sqldeveloper complains table not found when i do open for on the sys_refcursor.
i cannot do a table of user defined record type because the number of columns depends on the dataset and therefore not fixed.
how to get the sys_refcursor which upstream api can use ?

Answer 1

Not exactly sure what you want to do and why... Keep in mind that pulling data from the SQL engine into the PL/SQL engine (or into external code lke Java) and processing it there, can never be as fast or scale as well as crunching that data in the SQL engine instead. So where processing can be done in the SQL engine, do it there.
As for a 2D array definition and SQL projection, you can have a look at something like the following. Not sure if this is the approach you have in mind though. (note: the implicit cursor used could very easily be exposed to an external client via a ref cursor interface):
SQL> --// 1 dimensional array definition
SQL> create or replace type T1D is table of varchar2(4000);
  2  /
Type created.
SQL> --// 2 dimensional array definition
SQL> create or replace type T2D is table of T1D;
  2  /
Type created.
SQL>
SQL> declare
  2          arr2D   T2D;
  3  begin
  4          select
  5                  T1D( object_id, object_type, object_name )
  6                          bulk collect into
  7                  arr2D
  8          from    user_objects;
  9 
10          for x in 1..2   --// just showing the 1st 2 elements and not arr2D.Count
11          loop
12                  for y in 1..arr2D(x).Count
13                  loop
14                          DBMS_OUTPUT.put_line( 'x='||x||' y='||y||' value='||arr2D(x)(y) );
15                  end loop;
16          end loop;
17  end;
18  /
x=1 y=1 value=296403
x=1 y=2 value=PACKAGE
x=1 y=3 value=SYSLIB
x=2 y=1 value=296404
x=2 y=2 value=PACKAGE BODY
x=2 y=3 value=SYSLIB
PL/SQL procedure successfully completed.
SQL>