Returning a cursor from an inner procedure to outer procedure in oracle pl/sql

Question

I am using oracle PL/SQL procedure. I am calling one procedure inside another. I want to return a cursor from the nested procedure to the outer procedure. Is this possible? How adversely does it affect the procedure?

Below is the calling structure:

  Proc1( data1 IN integer, cursor1 OUT SYS_REFCURSOR ) {

               Proc2(data2 IN , cursor1 out) {
                       open cursor1 FOR
                select * from table;

               }
  }

Answer 1

Here is one example of calling procedures that have REF CURSOR OUT parameters.

SQL> create or replace procedure p1(
  2    p_empno in emp.empno%type,
  3    p_rc   out sys_refcursor
  4  )
  5  as
  6  begin
  7    open p_rc
  8     for
  9     select *
 10       from emp
 11      where empno = p_empno;
 12  end;
 13  /

Procedure created.

SQL> create or replace procedure p2(
  2    p_empno  in emp.empno%type,
  3    p_rc    out sys_refcursor
  4  )
  5  as
  6  begin
  7    p1( p_empno, p_rc );
  8  end;
  9  /

Procedure created.

In this case, I'm creating a SQL*Plus substitution variable rc in order to demonstrate how to call p2. If you are calling it in something other than SQL*Plus, the syntax will be a bit different but the general principle will be the same.

SQL> var rc refcursor;
SQL> exec p2( 7900, :rc );

PL/SQL procedure successfully completed.

SQL> print rc

     EMPNO ENAME      JOB              MGR HIREDATE         SAL       COMM
---------- ---------- --------- ---------- --------- ---------- ----------
    DEPTNO   FAKE_COL        FOO
---------- ---------- ----------
      7900 SM2        CLERK           7698 03-DEC-81        950
        30          1