Conditionally define a Cursor

Question

I have a Procedure in Oracle that takes a varchar2 paramater. Based on the value of that parameter, I need to define a cursor. The cursor will operate on diff

Answer 1

I would probably code something like this (where the two loops may call the same functions)

BEGIN
  IF( v_action = 'DO THIS' )
  THEN
    FOR this_cur IN (SELECT * FROM )
    LOOP
      <>
    END LOOP;
  ELSE
    FOR that_cur IN (SELECT * FROM )
    LOOP
      <>
    END LOOP;
  END IF;
END;

You could also use dynamic SQL to open the cursor but that tends to get more complicated, particularly if there are only two options.

IS
  get_records SYS_REFCURSOR;
  l_sql_stmt  VARCHAR2(100);
BEGIN
  IF( v_action = 'DO THIS' )
  THEN
    l_sql_stmt := 'SELECT * from ';
  ELSE
    l_sql_stmt := 'SELECT * from ';
  END IF;

  OPEN get_records FOR l_sql_stmt;
  ...