CREATE PROCEDURE

Purpose

Use the CREATE PROCEDURE statement to create a standalone stored procedure or a call specification.

A procedure is a group of PL/SQL statements that you can call by name. A call specification ("call spec") declares a Java method or a third-generation language (3GL) routine so that it can be called from SQL and PL/SQL. The call spec tells Oracle which Java method to invoke when a call is made. It also tells Oracle what type conversions to make for the arguments and return value.

Stored procedures offer advantages in the areas of development, integrity, security, performance, and memory allocation.

Prerequisites

Before creating a procedure, the user SYS must run a SQL script commonly called DBMSSTDX.SQL. The exact name and location of this script depends on your operating system.

To create a procedure in your own schema, you must have the CREATE PROCEDURE system privilege. To create a procedure in another user's schema, you must have CREATE ANY PROCEDURE system privilege. To replace a procedure in another schema, you must have the ALTER ANY PROCEDURE system privilege.

To invoke a call spec, you may need additional privileges (for example, EXECUTE privileges on the C library for a C call spec).

To embed a CREATE PROCEDURE statement inside an Oracle precompiler program, you must terminate the statement with the keyword END-EXEC followed by the embedded SQL statement terminator for the specific language.

Syntax

create_procedure::=

Text description of create_procedure

invoker_rights_clause::=

Text description of invoker_rights_clause

call_spec::=

Text description of call_spec

Java_declaration::=

Text description of Java_declaration

C_declaration::=

Text description of C_declaration

Semantics

OR REPLACE

Specify OR REPLACE to re-create the procedure if it already exists. Use this clause to change the definition of an existing procedure without dropping, re-creating, and regranting object privileges previously granted on it. If you redefine a procedure, Oracle recompiles it.

Users who had previously been granted privileges on a redefined procedure can still access the procedure without being regranted the privileges.

If any function-based indexes depend on the package, Oracle marks the indexes DISABLED.

schema

Specify the schema to contain the procedure. If you omit schema, Oracle creates the procedure in your current schema.

procedure

Specify the name of the procedure to be created.

If creating the procedure results in compilation errors, Oracle returns an error. You can see the associated compiler error messages with the SQL*Plus command SHOW ERRORS.

argument

Specify the name of an argument to the procedure. If the procedure does not accept arguments, you can omit the parentheses following the procedure name.

IN

Specify IN to indicate that you must specify a value for the argument when calling the procedure.

OUT

Specify OUT to indicate that the procedure passes a value for this argument back to its calling environment after execution.

IN OUT

Specify IN OUT to indicate that you must specify a value for the argument when calling the procedure and that the procedure passes a value back to its calling environment after execution.

If you omit IN, OUT, and IN OUT, the argument defaults to IN.

NOCOPY

Specify NOCOPY to instruct Oracle to pass this argument as fast as possible. This clause can significantly enhance performance when passing a large value like a record, an index-by table, or a varray to an OUT or IN OUT parameter. (IN parameter values are always passed NOCOPY.)

• When you specify NOCOPY, assignments made to a package variable may show immediately in this parameter (or assignments made to this parameter may show immediately in a package variable) if the package variable is passed as the actual assignment corresponding to this parameter.
• Similarly, changes made either to this parameter or to another parameter may be visible immediately through both names if the same variable is passed to both.
• If the procedure is exited with an unhandled exception, any assignment made to this parameter may be visible in the caller's variable.

These effects may or may not occur on any particular call. You should use NOCOPY only when these effects would not matter.

datatype

Specify the datatype of the argument. An argument can have any datatype supported by PL/SQL.

Datatypes cannot specify length, precision, or scale. For example, VARCHAR2(10) is not valid, but VARCHAR2 is valid. Oracle derives the length, precision, and scale of an argument from the environment from which the procedure is called.

invoker_rights_clause

The invoker_rights_clause lets you specify whether the procedure executes with the privileges and in the schema of the user who owns it or with the privileges and in the schema of CURRENT_USER.

This clause also determines how Oracle resolves external names in queries, DML operations, and dynamic SQL statements in the procedure.

AUTHID CURRENT_USER

Specify CURRENT_USER to indicate that the procedure executes with the privileges of CURRENT_USER. This clause creates an invoker-rights procedure.

This clause also specifies that external names in queries, DML operations, and dynamic SQL statements resolve in the schema of CURRENT_USER. External names in all other statements resolve in the schema in which the procedure resides.

AUTHID DEFINER

Specify DEFINER to indicate that the procedure executes with the privileges of the owner of the schema in which the procedure resides, and that external names resolve in the schema where the procedure resides. This is the default and creates a definer-rights procedure.

IS | AS Clause

pl/sql_subprogram_body

Declare the procedure in a PL/SQL subprogram body.

call_spec

Use the call_spec to map a Java or C method name, parameter types, and return type to their SQL counterparts.

In Java_declaration, 'string' identifies the Java implementation of the method.

AS EXTERNAL

The AS EXTERNAL clause is an alternative way of declaring a C method. This clause has been deprecated and is supported for backward compatibility only. Oracle Corporation recommends that you use the AS LANGUAGE C syntax.

Examples

Creating a Procedure: Example

The following statement creates the procedure remove_emp in the schema hr (PL/SQL is shown in italics):

CREATE PROCEDURE remove_emp (employee_id NUMBER) AS
   tot_emps NUMBER;
 BEGIN
    DELETE FROM employees
    WHERE employees.employee_id = remove_emp.employee_id;
 tot_emps := tot_emps - 1;
 END;
/

The remove_emp procedure removes a specified employee. When you call the procedure, you must specify the employee_id of the employee to be removed. The argument's datatype is NUMBER.

The procedure uses a DELETE statement to remove from the employees table the row of employee_id.

In the following example, external procedure c_find_root expects a pointer as a parameter. Procedure find_root passes the parameter by reference using the BY REFERENCE phrase (PL/SQL is shown in italics):

CREATE PROCEDURE find_root
   ( x IN REAL ) 
   IS LANGUAGE C
    NAME c_find_root
    LIBRARY c_utils
    PARAMETERS ( x BY REFERENCE );