How do you get nicely formatted results from an Oracle procedure that returns a reference cursor?

Question

In MS SQL Server if I want to check the results from a Stored procedure I might execute the following in Management Studio.

--SQL SERVER WAY
exec sp_GetQuest         


        

Answer 1

If GetQuestions is a function returning a refcursor, which seems to be what you have in the SQL Server version, then rather you may be able to do something like this:

select * from table(MyPackage.GetQuestions('OMG Ponies'));

Or if you need it in a PL/SQL block then you can use the same select in a cursor.

You can also have the function produce the dbms_output statements instead so they're always available for debugging, although that adds a little overhead.

Edit

Hmmm, not sure it's possible to cast() the returned refcursor to a usable type, unless you're willing to declare your own type (and a table of that type) outside the package. You can do this though, just to dump the results:

create package mypackage as
    function getquestions(user in varchar2) return sys_refcursor;
end mypackage;
/

create package body mypackage as
    function getquestions(user in varchar2) return sys_refcursor as
        r sys_refcursor;
    begin
        open r for
            /* Whatever your real query is */
            select 'Row 1' col1, 'Value 1' col2 from dual
            union
            select 'Row 2', 'Value 2' from dual
            union
            select 'Row 3', 'Value 3' from dual;
            return r;
    end;
end mypackage;
/

var r refcursor;
exec :r := mypackage.getquestions('OMG Ponies');
print r;

And you can use the result of the call in another procedure or function; it's just getting to it outside PL/SQL that seems to be a little tricky.

Edited to add: With this approach, if it's a procedure you can do essentially the same thing:

var r refcursor;
exec mypackage.getquestions(:r, 'OMG Ponies');
print r;