Variable where clause

Question

Hi, anyone can help me on this:
I need to have a PLSQL cursor that has a variable where clause
eg
select * from employee where salary > 100
VS
select * from employee where salary < 100
Is there anyway I can put a variable in the where clause?

Answer 1

Hi,
You can have arguments to a cursor, but that only allows you to pass values like 100 (vs. -100), not operators like > (vs. <).
Sometimes, you can re-phrase your condition so that is enough. The example you gave happens to be one of those cases:
CURSOR  x_csr  (target_sign NUMBER)
IS  SELECT  *
    FROM    employee
    WHERE   SIGN (salary - 100) = target_sign;If you open x_csr (1), you'll get employees with salary > 100.
If you open x_csr (-1), you'll get employees with salary < 100.
A more general, but less efficient way to get similar results:
CURSOR  x_csr  (condition_to_use NUMBER)
IS  SELECT  *
    FROM    employee
    WHERE   (condition_to_use = 1 AND salary > 100)
    OR      (condition_to_use = 2 AND salary < 100);Otherwise, you have to use dynamic SQL.
By the way, in the future, you'll get better results for questions like this if you post them in the [PL/SQL|http://forums.oracle.com/forums/forum.jspa?forumID=75] forum.
Edited by: Frank Kulash on May 24, 2009 11:07 PM