Variable for entire where clause

Question

Is it possible to use a variable for the entire where clause in a PL/SQL select statement?
I have a where clause stored as a string in the database and I want to use that entire string as a variable, but my procedure will not compile because it is missing the relational operator.
SELECT whereclause FROM clausetable WHERE clause = 'TEST'; will return this string: column1 = 'abc'
Here's my procedure:
create or replace
PROCEDURE TESTWC
(c_out OUT sys_refcursor )
AS
BEGIN
DECLARE
v_whereclause VARCHAR2(255);
BEGIN
SELECT whereclause
INTO v_whereclause
FROM clause_table
WHERE clause = 'TEST';
DBMS_OUTPUT.PUT_LINE(v_whereclause);
OPEN c_test FOR SELECT * FROM dpacsoftware WHERE v_whereclause;
NULL;
END;
END TESTWC;

Answer 1

Is it possible to use a variable for the entire where clause in a PL/SQL select statement?Unfortunately yes.
I have a where clause stored as a string in the databaseThis is a really bad idea, like storing the source for half your program in a text file with a bunch of Java or C or FORTRAN code and opening, reading, compiling and linking at run time.
It is slow, slow, slow as you can expect, and dangerous and insecure, since someone could have put a format C: command in your source file, or something equivalently nasty to a database.