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Procedures and functions

Unit 6

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 A procedure is a named PL/SQL block which performs one

or more specific task.
 A procedure has a header and a body.
 The header consists of the name of the procedure and the
parameters or variables passed to the procedure.
 The body consists of declaration section, execution
section and exception section similar to a general PL/SQL
Block.
 A procedure is similar to an anonymous PL/SQL Block but
it is named for repeated usage.

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General Syntax to create a procedure is:

CREATE [OR REPLACE] PROCEDURE proc_name [list of

parameters]
IS
Declaration section
BEGIN
Execution section
EXCEPTION
Exception section
END;

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 IS - marks the beginning of the body of the procedure and

is similar to DECLARE in anonymous PL/SQL Blocks.
 The code between IS and BEGIN forms the Declaration
section.

 The syntax within the brackets [ ] indicate they are

optional.
 By using CREATE OR REPLACE together the procedure is
created if no other procedure with the same name exists
or the existing procedure is replaced with the current
code.
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Example

 The following example creates a simple procedure that

displays the string 'Hello World!' on the screen when
executed.

 CREATE OR REPLACE PROCEDURE greetings

 IS
 BEGIN
 dbms_output.put_line('Hello World!');
 END;

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execute a procedure

 There are two ways to execute a procedure.

1) From the SQL prompt.
EXECUTE [or EXEC] procedure_name;
2) Within another procedure – simply use the procedure
name.
procedure_name;

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Executing a Standalone Procedure

 The procedure can be called from another PL/SQL block −

 BEGIN
 greetings;
 END;

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example
 The below example creates a procedure ‘employer_details’ which gives the details of the
employee.

CREATE OR REPLACE PROCEDURE employer_details

IS
CURSOR emp_cur IS
SELECT first_name, last_name, salary FROM emp_tbl;
emp_rec emp_cur%rowtype;
BEGIN
FOR emp_rec in emp_cur
LOOP
dbms_output.put_line(emp_cur.first_name || ' ' ||emp_cur.last_name || ' ' ||emp_cur.salary);
END LOOP;
END;

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Deleting a Standalone Procedure

 A standalone procedure is deleted with the DROP

PROCEDURE statement. Syntax for deleting a procedure is
−
 DROP PROCEDURE procedure-name;

 greetings procedure can be deleted by using the following

statement −

 DROP PROCEDURE greetings;

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Procedures: Passing Parameters

 We can pass parameters to procedures in three ways.

1) IN-parameters
2) OUT-parameters
3) IN OUT-parameters
 A procedure may or may not return any value.

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Parameter Modes in PL/SQL Subprograms

 IN
 An IN parameter lets you pass a value to the subprogram.
 It is a read-only parameter.
 Inside the subprogram, an IN parameter acts like a constant.
 It cannot be assigned a value.
 You can pass a constant, literal, initialized variable, or
expression as an IN parameter.
 You can also initialize it to a default value; however, in that
case, it is omitted from the subprogram call.
 It is the default mode of parameter passing.
 Parameters are passed by reference.

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Parameter Modes in PL/SQL Subprograms

 OUT
 An OUT parameter returns a value to the calling program.
Inside the subprogram, an OUT parameter acts like a
variable.
 You can change its value and reference the value after
assigning it.
 The actual parameter must be variable and it is passed by
value.

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Parameter Modes in PL/SQL Subprograms

 IN OUT
 An IN OUT parameter passes an initial value to a
subprogram and returns an updated value to the caller.
 It can be assigned a value and the value can be read.
 The actual parameter corresponding to an IN OUT formal
parameter must be a variable, not a constant or an
expression.
 Formal parameter must be assigned a value. Actual
parameter is passed by value.

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 Create PROCEDURE findMin(x IN number, y IN number, z

OUT number) IS
 BEGIN
 IF x < y THEN
 z:= x;
 ELSE
 z:= y;
 END IF;
 END;

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 DECLARE
 a number;
 b number;
 c number;
 BEGIN
 a:= 23;
 b:= 45;
 findMin(a, b, c);
 dbms_output.put_line(' Minimum of (23, 45) : ' || c);
 END;
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 DECLARE
 a number;
 PROCEDURE squareNum(x IN OUT number) IS
 BEGIN
 x := x * x;
 END;
 BEGIN
 a:= 23;
 squareNum(a);
 dbms_output.put_line(' Square of (23): ' || a);
 END;
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Example1:

 Using IN and OUT parameter:

 Let’s create a procedure which gets the name of the employee

when the employee id is passed.

CREATE OR REPLACE PROCEDURE emp_name (id IN NUMBER,

emp_name OUT NUMBER)
IS
BEGIN
SELECT first_name INTO emp_name FROM emp_tbl WHERE empID = id;
END;

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 DECLARE
 empName varchar(20);
 CURSOR id_cur SELECT id FROM emp_ids;
 BEGIN
 FOR emp_rec in id_cur
 LOOP
 emp_name(emp_rec.id, empName);
 dbms_output.putline('The employee ' || empName || ' has id ' ||
emp-rec.id);
 END LOOP;
 END;
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Using IN OUT parameter in procedures:

 CREATE OR REPLACE PROCEDURE emp_salary_increase

 (emp_id IN emptbl.empID%type, salary_inc IN OUT emptbl.salary%type)
 IS
 tmp_sal number;
 BEGIN
 SELECT salary INTO tmp_sal FROM emp_tbl WHERE empID = emp_id;
 IF tmp_sal between 10000 and 20000 THEN
salary_inout := tmp_sal * 1.2;
 ELSIF tmp_sal between 20000 and 30000 THEN
 salary_inout := tmp_sal * 1.3;
 ELSIF tmp_sal > 30000 THEN
 salary_inout := tmp_sal * 1.4;
 END IF;
 END;
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 The below PL/SQL block shows how to execute the above 'emp_salary_increase' procedure.

 DECLARE
 CURSOR updated_sal is
 SELECT empID,salary
 FROM emp_tbl;
 pre_sal number;
 BEGIN
 FOR emp_rec IN updated_sal LOOP
 pre_sal := emp_rec.salary;
 emp_salary_increase(emp_rec.empID, emp_rec.salary);
 dbms_output.put_line('The salary of ' || emp_rec.empID ||
 ' increased from '|| pre_sal || ' to '||emp_rec.salary);
 END LOOP;
 END;

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PL/SQL Functions

 What is a Function in PL/SQL?

 A function is a named PL/SQL Block which is similar to a
procedure.
 The major difference between a procedure and a function
is, a function must always return a value, but a procedure
may or may not return a value.

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General Syntax to create a function

CREATE [OR REPLACE] FUNCTION function_name

[(parameter_name [IN | OUT | IN OUT] type [, ...])]
RETURN return_datatype
{IS | AS}
BEGIN
< function_body >
END [function_name];

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 Where,

 function-name specifies the name of the function.

 [OR REPLACE] option allows the modification of an existing function.
 The optional parameter list contains name, mode and types of the
parameters. IN represents the value that will be passed from outside
and OUT represents the parameter that will be used to return a value
outside of the procedure.
 The function must contain a return statement.
 The RETURN clause specifies the data type you are going to return
from the function.
 function-body contains the executable part.
 The AS keyword is used instead of the IS keyword for creating a
standalone function.

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 create or replace function sum(n1 in number, n2 in

number)
 return number
 is
 n3 number;
 begin
 n3 :=n1+n2;
 return n3;
 end;

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program to call the function

 DECLARE
 n3 number;
 BEGIN
 n3 := sum(11,22);
 dbms_output.put_line(‘Sum is: ' || n3);
 END;

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Function to find the total number of customers

CREATE OR REPLACE FUNCTION totalCustomers

RETURN number IS
total number(2) := 0;
BEGIN
SELECT count(*) into total
FROM customers;

RETURN total;
END;
/
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Calling function

 DECLARE
 c number(2);
 BEGIN
 c := totalCustomers();
 dbms_output.put_line('Total no. of Customers: ' || c);
 END;

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DECLARE
c number(2);
BEGIN
c := totalCustomers();
dbms_output.put_line('Total no. of Customers: ' || c);
END;

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 DECLARE
 a number;
 b number;
 c number;
 FUNCTION findMax(x IN number, y IN number)
 RETURN number
 IS
 z number;
 BEGIN
 IF x > y THEN
 z:= x;
 ELSE
 Z:= y;
 END IF;
 RETURN z;
 END;
 BEGIN
 a:= 23;
 b:= 45;

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 dbms_output.put_line(' Maximum of (23,45): ' || c);

 END;

How to execute a PL/SQL Function?

A function can be executed in the following ways.

1) Since a function returns a value we can assign it to a variable.

employee_name := employer_details_func;
If ‘employee_name’ is of datatype varchar we can store the name
of the employee by assigning the return type of the function to it.
2) As a part of a SELECT statement
SELECT employer_details_func FROM dual;
3) In a PL/SQL Statements like,
dbms_output.put_line(employer_details_func);
This line displays the value returned by the function.

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