FORALL loop - select statement from associative array - plsql

Question

I have a function, which accepts associative array as parameters. Function - before insert/update - needs to check if records exists in table, so I need to loop over array.
Since FORALL doesn't allow SELECT statement, what is the right way to do this ?
Function (just the part I need to fix - It's an example!!):
type t_name is table of MySchema.Orders.NAME%type index by pls_integer;
type t_year is table of MySchema.Orders.YEAR%type index by pls_integer;
type t_month is table of MySchema.Orders.MONTH%type index by pls_integer;
FUNCTION Check_records (name_in IN t_name, year_in IN t_year, month_in IN t_month) RETURN INTEGER
IS
record_exists INTEGER;
BEGIN
FORALL i in name_in.FIRST..name_in.LAST
SELECT COUNT(*) INTO record_exists
FROM MySchema.Orders#link_to_table
WHERE name= name_in(i)
AND year= year_in(i)
AND month= month_in(i);
return record_exist
END Check_records;

Answer 1

The simplest approach would simply be to use a for loop
DECLARE
l_total_records pls_integer;
l_count pls_integer;
BEGIN
l_total_records := 0;
FOR i in name_in.FIRST..name_in.LAST
LOOP
SELECT COUNT(*)
INTO l_count
FROM MySchema.Orders#link_to_table
WHERE name= name_in(i)
AND year= year_in(i)
AND month= month_in(i);
l_total_count := l_total_count + l_count;
END LOOP;
END;
If you were querying a local table and you could use a single collection (i.e. a collection of an object type with name, year, and month fields), you could do something more elegant with a MEMBER OF function but I'm not sure that works over a database link and don't have one available to test at the moment.