Oracle - select a specific column from a ref cursor

Question

My situation:

• I have a table named Table1. It has lots of columns, one of them is Column1. I don't know the other columns, they may even change sometimes.
• There is a strongly typed ref cursor type which returns Table1%rowtype, named cur_Table1.
• I have a stored procedure named SP1 which has an out parameter of type cur_Table1. I'm calling this SP1 stored procedure from another database that only sees this stored procedure, but not the table or the type itself.

How do I select only Column1 from the returned cursor?

I know I can fetch into a record or as many variables as the cursor has columns, but I only know of one column's existence so I can't declare the complete record or correct number of variables.

Answer 1

Given the original question, jonearles's answer is still correct, so I'll leave it marked as such, but I ended up doing something completely different and much better.

The problem was/is that I have no control over SP1's database, I just have to call it from somewhere else as a 3rd party client. Now I managed to get permission to see not only SP, but also the type of the cursor. I still don't see the table but now there is a much cleaner solution:

In the other database I have been granted access to see this type now:

type cur_Table1 is ref cursor return Table1%rowtype;

So in my database I can do this now:

mycursor OtherDB.cur_Table1;
myrecord mycursor%rowtype;
...
OtherDB.SP1(mycursor);
fetch mycursor into myrecord;
dbms_output.put_line(myrecord.Column1);

See, I still don't need any access to the table, I see the cursor only. The key is that the magical %rowtype works for cursors as well, not just tables. It doesn't work on a sys_refcursor, but it does on a strongly typed one. Given this code, I don't have to care if anything changes on the other side, I don't have to define all the columns or records at all, I just specify the one column I'm interested in.

I really love this OOP attitude about Oracle.

Answer 2

You can do this with DBMS_SQL, but it ain't pretty.

Table and sample data (COLUMN1 has the numbers 1 - 10):

create table table1(column1 number, column2 date, column3 varchar2(1000), column4 clob);

insert into table1
select level, sysdate, level, level from dual connect by level <= 10;
commit;

Package with a procedure that opens a ref cursor and selects everything:

create or replace package test_pkg is
    type cur_Table1 is ref cursor return table1%rowtype;
    procedure sp1(p_cursor in out cur_table1);
end;
/

create or replace package body test_pkg is
    procedure sp1(p_cursor in out cur_table1) is
    begin
        open p_cursor for select column1, column2, column3, column4 from table1;
    end;
end;
/

PL/SQL block that reads COLUMN1 data from the ref cursor:

--Basic steps are: call procedure, convert cursor, describe and find columns,
--then fetch rows and retrieve column values.
--
--Each possible data type for COLUMN1 needs to be added here.
--Currently only NUMBER is supported.
declare
    v_cursor sys_refcursor;
    v_cursor_number number;

    v_columns number;
    v_desc_tab dbms_sql.desc_tab;
    v_position number;
    v_typecode number;
    v_number_value number;
begin
    --Call procedure to open cursor
    test_pkg.sp1(v_cursor);
    --Convert cursor to DBMS_SQL cursor
    v_cursor_number := dbms_sql.to_cursor_number(rc => v_cursor);
    --Get information on the columns
    dbms_sql.describe_columns(v_cursor_number, v_columns, v_desc_tab);

    --Loop through all the columns, find COLUMN1 position and type
    for i in 1 .. v_desc_tab.count loop
        if v_desc_tab(i).col_name = 'COLUMN1' then
            v_position := i;
            v_typecode := v_desc_tab(i).col_type;

            --Pick COLUMN1 to be selected.
            if v_typecode = dbms_types.typecode_number then
                dbms_sql.define_column(v_cursor_number, i, v_number_value);
            --...repeat for every possible type.
            end if;
        end if;
    end loop;

    --Fetch all the rows, then get the relevant column value and print it
    while dbms_sql.fetch_rows(v_cursor_number) > 0 loop
        if v_typecode = dbms_types.typecode_number then
            dbms_sql.column_value(v_cursor_number, v_position, v_number_value);
            dbms_output.put_line('Value: '||v_number_value);
        --...repeat for every possible type
        end if;
    end loop;   
end;
/