How to iterate over positional script parameters in sqlplus? - oracle

Question

In an Oracle sqlplus script, I can use single script parameters as
set serveroutput on
define arg = '&1'
begin
dbms_output.putline('&arg.');
end;
/
And in a Unix shell, I can iterate over given script arguments and pass that to an sqlplus script with
for x in "$#"; do
sqlplus user/passwd#sid #script.sql "$x"
done
Is there a similar way in Oracle sqlplus? Something like
for arg in &* loop
dbms_output.putline('&arg.');
end loop;
where arg would take values of &1, &2, &3, ...
This means, when I call
$ sqlplus user/passwd#sid #script.sql a b c
I would see as output
a
b
c

Answer 1

Let's see if this is what you are looking for.
We have an undetermined list of parameters
All of them are split by whitespace ( as it were a list on bash input parameters )
Do something with all of them, independently of the number of parameters
In order for sqlplus to deal with this, all of the parameters must be enclosed with double quotes, so that the code will interpret them as only one parameter.
Script
set serveroutput on size unlimited
declare
vstring varchar2(4000) := '&1';
vcounter pls_integer;
vrecord varchar2(20);
BEGIN
vcounter := regexp_count( vstring , ' ') + 1;
for var in 1..vcounter
loop
if var = 1
then
vrecord := regexp_substr( vstring, '[^ ]+', 1 , 1 );
dbms_output.put_line(vrecord);
elsif var > 1 and var <= vcounter
then
vrecord := regexp_substr( vstring, '[^ ]+', 1 , var );
dbms_output.put_line(vrecord);
end if;
end loop;
end;
/
I have this script stored as iteration.sql. So, let's run it with a set of parameters
SQL> #iteration.sql "2"
old 2: vstring varchar2(4000) := '&1';
new 2: vstring varchar2(4000) := '2';
2
PL/SQL procedure successfully completed.
SQL> #iteration.sql "2 m3 88 99 ajkd8 0 88 aa"
old 2: vstring varchar2(4000) := '&1';
new 2: vstring varchar2(4000) := '2 m3 88 99 ajkd8 0 88 aa';
2
m3
88
99
ajkd8
0
88
aa
PL/SQL procedure successfully completed.