How to print a cursor in a PL/SQL block? - oracle

Question

I can't seem to print cursor, what am I doing wrong?
DECLARE
LEADEMAIL VARCHAR2(200);
CLIENTID NUMBER;
v_Return ON24MASTER.WEBCAST_REPORTS.ResultSetCursor;
BEGIN
LEADEMAIL := 'nunyo#business.com';
CLIENTID := 22921;
v_Return := WEBCAST_REPORTS.LEAD_BASIC_INFO(
LEADEMAIL => LEADEMAIL,
CLIENTID => CLIENTID
);
DBMS_OUTPUT.PUT_LINE('v_Return = ' || v_Return);
-- :v_Return := v_Return;
END;
I get the following error:
Error report -
ORA-06550: line 14, column 26:
PLS-00306: wrong number or types of arguments in call to '||'
ORA-06550: line 14, column 5:
PL/SQL: Statement ignored
06550. 00000 - "line %s, column %s:\n%s"
*Cause: Usually a PL/SQL compilation error.
*Action:
Most of the code was taken directly from running the function from SQL developer.
This is the package function:
FUNCTION LEAD_BASIC_INFO(
leadEmail VARCHAR2,
clientId NUMBER
) RETURN ResultSetCursor IS
resultSet ResultSetCursor;
email VARCHAR2(1000);
webcastEngagement NUMBER(10,1);
videoEngagement NUMBER(10,1);
documentEngagement NUMBER(10,1);
totalEngagement NUMBER(10,1);
--averageEngagement NUMBER(4,1);
totalWebcastSeconds NUMBER(10);
engagementMinutes NUMBER(10, 1);
last30DaysEM NUMBER(10, 1);
last60DaysEM NUMBER(10, 1);
fromDate DATE;
engagementPrediction NUMBER(10);
BEGIN...
Also, I can't print the result using a select statement because the function has DML as well.

Answer 1

In Oracle 12c, you can use DBMS_SQL.RETURN_RESULT. I.e.,
DECLARE
LEADEMAIL VARCHAR2(200);
CLIENTID NUMBER;
v_Return ON24MASTER.WEBCAST_REPORTS.ResultSetCursor;
BEGIN
LEADEMAIL := 'nunyo#business.com';
CLIENTID := 22921;
v_Return := WEBCAST_REPORTS.LEAD_BASIC_INFO(
LEADEMAIL => LEADEMAIL,
CLIENTID => CLIENTID
);
DBMS_SQL.RETURN_RESULT(v_Return);
END;
SQL*Developer will print the results.

Answer 2

You can't print a cursor like that; it would have to implicitly convert the rows and columns to strings, and that's too much to expect. The dbms_output.put_line() procedure only accepts a string argument - or anything that can be implicitly converted to a string. A cursor cannot.
You would have to loop over the cursor result set, fetching into a suitable record type; and then have a dbms_output call within that loop which concatenates all the column values from the result set (formatted and possibly padded if you're trying to emulate a select) into a single string.
Without know exactly how ON24MASTER.WEBCAST_REPORTS.ResultSetCursor is defined (presumably TYPE ResultSetCursor IS REF CURSOR), or what the query that populates it within your procedure is returning - which column names - it's hard to be more specific.
But since you've tagged this for SQL Developer you can use its built-in handling for ref cursor variables, which is handy:
variable rc refcursor;
DECLARE
LEADEMAIL VARCHAR2(200);
CLIENTID NUMBER;
BEGIN
LEADEMAIL := 'nunyo#business.com';
CLIENTID := 22921;
:rc := WEBCAST_REPORTS.LEAD_BASIC_INFO(
LEADEMAIL => LEADEMAIL,
CLIENTID => CLIENTID
);
END;
/
print rc
Before the block a bind variable rc is declared with the variable command. Inside the block that is used instead of a local v_Return, so that doesn't even need to be declared locally. (Note the colon before :rc in the assignment from the function - that denotes a bind variable). And then after the block the client lets you print the ref cursor. (Those doc links are for SQL*Plus, but they are among the the many commands SQL Developer supports.)
With a dummy package:
create or replace package WEBCAST_REPORTS AS
TYPE ResultSetCursor IS ref cursor;
FUNCTION LEAD_BASIC_INFO(
leadEmail VARCHAR2,
clientId NUMBER
) RETURN ResultSetCursor;
end WEBCAST_REPORTS;
/
create or replace package body WEBCAST_REPORTS AS
FUNCTION LEAD_BASIC_INFO(
leadEmail VARCHAR2,
clientId NUMBER
) RETURN ResultSetCursor IS
resultSet ResultSetCursor;
BEGIN
OPEN resultSet FOR select * from dual;
RETURN resultSet;
END LEAD_BASIC_INFO;
end WEBCAST_REPORTS;
/
then the code I showed above, run as a script, shows this in the script output window:
PL/SQL procedure successfully completed.
D
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