How to access the structure and get the column list ,datatypes of refcursor?

Question

I have a procedure which gets me the output with refcursor and data/structure in cursor will be dynami. Each time depending on inputs datatypes and no of columns in cursor w

Answer 1

You can convert the ref cursor to a DBMS_SQL cursor using the DBMS_SQL.TO_CURSOR_NUMBER function. Then, having the cursor number, you can inspect manipulate it via DBMS_SQL. This includes being able to describe it's columns, as shown in the example below:

DECLARE
  l_rc              SYS_REFCURSOR;

  l_cursor_number   INTEGER;
  l_col_cnt         INTEGER;
  l_desc_tab        DBMS_SQL.desc_tab;
  l_col_num         INTEGER;
BEGIN
  OPEN l_rc FOR 'SELECT object_name, object_type, last_ddl_time FROM dba_objects where rownum <= 10';

  l_cursor_number   := DBMS_SQL.to_cursor_number (l_rc);

  DBMS_SQL.describe_columns (l_cursor_number, l_col_cnt, l_desc_tab);

  l_col_num         := l_desc_tab.FIRST;

  IF (l_col_num IS NOT NULL) THEN
    LOOP
      DBMS_OUTPUT.put_line ('Column #' || l_col_num);
      DBMS_OUTPUT.put_line ('...name: ' || l_desc_tab (l_col_num).col_name);
      DBMS_OUTPUT.put_line ('...type: ' || l_desc_tab (l_col_num).col_type);
      DBMS_OUTPUT.put_line ('...maxlen: ' || l_desc_tab (l_col_num).col_max_len);
      -- ... other fields available in l_desc_tab(l_col_num) too.
      l_col_num   := l_desc_tab.NEXT (l_col_num);
      EXIT WHEN (l_col_num IS NULL);
    END LOOP;
  END IF;

  DBMS_SQL.close_cursor (l_cursor_number);
END;

Output

Column #1
...name: OBJECT_NAME
...type: 1
...maxlen: 128
Column #2
...name: OBJECT_TYPE
...type: 1
...maxlen: 23
Column #3
...name: LAST_DDL_TIME
...type: 12
...maxlen: 7