Dropping multiple columns: PLSQL and user_tab_cols

Question

I have a table TABLE_X and it has multiple columns beginning with M_ characters which needs to be dropped. I decided to use the following PLSQL code to drop almost 100 columns beginning with M_ characters. Is it a good employment of dynamic sql and cursors? Can it be better? I didn't know more simple way since ALTER TABLE ... DROP COLUMN doesn't allow subquery to specify multiple column names.

declare
rcur sys_refcursor;
cn user_tab_cols.column_name%type;
begin
open rcur for select column_name from user_tab_cols where table_name='TABLE_X' and column_name LIKE 'M_%';
loop
fetch rcur into cn;
exit when rcur%NOTFOUND;
execute immediate 'alter table TABLE_X drop column '||cn;--works great
execute immediate 'alter table TABLE_X drop column :col'using cn;--error
end loop;
close rcur;
end;

Also. Why is it impossible to use 'using cn'?

Answer 1

This is a reasonable use of dynamic SQL. I would seriously question an underlying data model that has hundreds of columns in a single table that start with the same prefix and all need to be dropped. That implies to me that the data model itself is likely to be highly problematic.

Even using dynamic SQL, you cannot use bind variables for column names, table names, schema names, etc. Oracle needs to know at parse time what objects and columns are involved in a SQL statement. Since bind variables are supplied after the parse phase, however, you cannot specify a bind variable that changes what objects and/or columns a SQL statement is affecting.