Oracle PL/SQL - Bulk Collection usage into WHERE and FROM clause inside conditions and inner views

Question

I have a strange problem using bulk collection as element of FROM clause. When I execute this code example, I get, just at run-time, the error "invalid table name".

If I replace the collection with a table everything works well.

Is there any restriction about bulk collection that I'm missing? Maybe I cannot use anonymous block in FROM clause? In the sql debugger I see that l_vol(i) has values but l_vol(i).FIELD doesn't exists.

Thanks.

 TYPE t_bulk_vol is table of vol%ROWTYPE;
 l_vol t_bulk_vol;
 ...
 cursor cur is SELECT * FROM vol where ... ;

 OPEN CUR;
 LOOP 
     FETCH CUR BULK COLLECT INTO l_vol;
     ....
     insert into dest
     select col1, col2, ... from 
     (inner view with some pivot, unpivot and l_vol(i).FIELD ...) src where l_vol(i).FIELD = src.FIELD;

PS: I cannot paste original code.

Answer 1

I have created the type as you said, but I get the same error at the same point (ORA-00903 - invalid table name).

This is an example of what I've done:

  CREATE TYPE REC_VOL AS OBJECT (
       FIELD1    VARCHAR2(25),
       ...
  );
  create TYPE T_BULK IS TABLE OF REC_VOL;
  ....
  l_vol t_bulk;
  ...

This is the way I collect the records (I don't use the cursor anymore):

    SELECT REC_VOL(FIELD1, ...) BULK COLLECT INTO l_vol
    FROM vol where ...;

The exception is still raised at the insert-select statement.

Answer 2

TYPE t_bulk_vol is a PL/SQL type. That means you can only use it in PL/SQL constructs. You cannot use it in SQL, even if it's SQL in a PL/SQL program.

If you want to use a nested table in the FROM clause of a SELECT you will need to define a SQL TYPE. This is a pain, because it means you can't use the %ROWTYPE definition (that's a PL/SQL only keyword). So you'll have to create an object whose signature matches the projection of the table, and then create nested table of that type. Find out more.

---

Your cursor is defined wrongly. It should just be a SELECT statement.

cursor cur is SELECT * FROM vol where ... ;

Save the BULK COLLECT INTO l_vol for the actual fetch.

Although presumably this is just a artefact of you faking some PL/SQL because you "cannot paste original code."