EXECUTE IMMEDIATE in plsql

Question

How to get a result from this code

EXECUTE IMMEDIATE \'SELECT * FROM \' || table_name

through for loop

The usual m

Answer 1

If you really need to select * from dynamic table name, then I'd probably go with dbms_sql

Type for a record:

create type tq84_varchar2_tab as table of varchar2(4000);
/

Type for a result set (which is an array of records):

create type tq84_varchar2_tab_tab as table of tq84_varchar2_tab;
/

The function that does the select and returns an instance of the result set:

create or replace function tq84_select_star_from_table(table_name in varchar2) 
    return tq84_varchar2_tab_tab
as
    stmt_txt     varchar2(4000);
    cur          number;
    columns_desc dbms_sql.desc_tab;
    column_cnt   number;

    result_set   tq84_varchar2_tab_tab;

begin

    stmt_txt := 'select * from ' || table_name;    

    cur := dbms_sql.open_cursor;

    dbms_sql.parse(cur, stmt_txt, dbms_sql.native);
    dbms_sql.describe_columns(cur, column_cnt, columns_desc);
    dbms_sql.close_cursor(cur);


    stmt_txt := 'select tq84_varchar2_tab(';

    for i in 1 .. column_cnt loop 

        if i != 1 then
           stmt_txt := stmt_txt || ',';
        end if;

        stmt_txt := stmt_txt || columns_desc(i).col_name;

    end loop;

    stmt_txt := stmt_txt || ') from ' || table_name;

--  dbms_output.put_line(stmt_txt);

    execute immediate stmt_txt 
    bulk collect into result_set;

    return result_set;


end tq84_select_star_from_table;

The function can then be used with something like:

declare
  records   tq84_varchar2_tab_tab;
begin

  records := tq84_select_star_from_table('user_objects');

  for i in 1 .. records.count loop
      dbms_output.put_line (records(i)(5) || ': ' || records(i)(1));
  end loop;

end;
/