Unions in stored procedures

Question

We've been still using 8i but just had an instance of 9i put up in our development region. We're trying to take a dynamic sql statement with many unions and create a stored procedure. I understand this was a problem in 8i. We're still getting ambiguous error messages when trying to compile in 9i. Should the sql be in the construct of a cursor? Any suggestions would be appreciated.
Thanks,
Roger

Answer 1

Odd that they didn't install 10g, if the aim is to try out new features.
I have never come across any problems with set operators in dynamic SQL. Do you have any more details?
btw the minimum changes to the earlier example to get it to work would result in something like:
CREATE OR REPLACE PROCEDURE showemployee
     ( where_in IN VARCHAR2 := NULL )
IS
     TYPE emp_rectype IS RECORD
     ( empno emp.empno%TYPE
     , ename emp.ename%TYPE );
     TYPE SYS_REFCURSOR IS REF CURSOR;  -- Can be removed in 9i
     c_emp SYS_REFCURSOR;
     curs_rec EMP_RECTYPE;
BEGIN
     OPEN c_emp FOR
     'SELECT EMPNO, ENAME FROM EMP WHERE '|| NVL(where_in, '1=1');
     LOOP
          FETCH c_emp INTO curs_rec;
          EXIT WHEN c_emp%NOTFOUND;
          DBMS_OUTPUT.PUT_LINE(curs_rec.ename ||' '||curs_rec.empno);
     END LOOP;
     CLOSE c_emp;
END;
/