Is it possible to output a SELECT statement from a PL/SQL block?

Question

How can I get a PL/SQL block to output the results of a SELECT statement the same way as if I had done a plain SELECT?

For example how to do a SELECT like:

SELECT foo, bar FROM foobar;

Hint :

BEGIN
SELECT foo, bar FROM foobar;
END;

doesn't work.

Answer 1

It depends on what you need the result for.

If you are sure that there's going to be only 1 row, use implicit cursor:

DECLARE
   v_foo foobar.foo%TYPE;
   v_bar foobar.bar%TYPE;
BEGIN
   SELECT foo,bar FROM foobar INTO v_foo, v_bar;
   -- Print the foo and bar values
   dbms_output.put_line('foo=' || v_foo || ', bar=' || v_bar);
EXCEPTION
   WHEN NO_DATA_FOUND THEN
     -- No rows selected, insert your exception handler here
   WHEN TOO_MANY_ROWS THEN
     -- More than 1 row seleced, insert your exception handler here
END;

If you want to select more than 1 row, you can use either an explicit cursor:

DECLARE
   CURSOR cur_foobar IS
     SELECT foo, bar FROM foobar;

   v_foo foobar.foo%TYPE;
   v_bar foobar.bar%TYPE;
BEGIN
   -- Open the cursor and loop through the records
   OPEN cur_foobar;
   LOOP
      FETCH cur_foobar INTO v_foo, v_bar;
      EXIT WHEN cur_foobar%NOTFOUND;
      -- Print the foo and bar values
      dbms_output.put_line('foo=' || v_foo || ', bar=' || v_bar);
   END LOOP;
   CLOSE cur_foobar;
END;

or use another type of cursor:

BEGIN
   -- Open the cursor and loop through the records
   FOR v_rec IN (SELECT foo, bar FROM foobar) LOOP       
   -- Print the foo and bar values
   dbms_output.put_line('foo=' || v_rec.foo || ', bar=' || v_rec.bar);
   END LOOP;
END;