Calling a stored procedure with CLOB output - plsql

Question

I am trying to use the CLOB datatype as the output parameter in my stored procedure because its resultset exceeds the storage capacity of a var datatype.
How do I execute the procedure? Below are the commands I had run to execute.
I tried assigning the resultset to the the CLOB variable using the INTO query as shown in the query.
var cl CLOB;
EXECUTE procedure_name(:cl);
print cl;
How do i declare the binding variable because if you look at the first command, I am first initializing cl as var I am not able to initialize it as CLOB as it is giving out an error.
This is a sample of my procedure. The actual query in the procedure is 700 lines long.
CREATE OR REPLACE PROCEDURE procedure_name (cl OUT CLOB)
IS
BEGIN OPEN cl FOR
SELECT * FROM .....
statement 1
.
.
.
.
.
statement n
INTO cl
FROM
statement 1
.
.
.
statement n
EXCEPTION
WHEN
OTHERS THEN
DECLARE
err_num NUMBER := SQLCODE;
err_msg VARCHAR2(512) := SQLERRM;
error_id_pk NUMBER;
error_dt DATE;
BEGIN
SELECT (REGEXP_REPLACE(CURRENT_TIMESTAMP, '[^0-9]+', ''))INTO error_id_pk FROM DUAL;
SELECT SYSDATE INTO error_dt FROM DUAL;
INSERT INTO ODS_CONTROL.ERROR_DETAILS(ERROR_ID, ERROR_CODE, ERROR_DATE, PROCEDURE_NAME, ERROR_MSG)
VALUES ( error_id_pk,
err_num,
error_dt,
'PRC_FLEXI_CARD',
err_msg
);
END;
END;
Error message:
Error starting at line : 2 in command -
EXECUTE procedure_name( :clb )
Error report -
ORA-06550: line 1, column 7:
PLS-00905: object procedure_name is invalid
ORA-06550: line 1, column 7:
PL/SQL: Statement ignored
06550. 00000 - "line %s, column %s:\n%s"
*Cause: Usually a PL/SQL compilation error.
*Action:

Answer 1

[TL;DR] VAR is a keyword for declaring a variable and is not a data type; your actual error is due to using invalid syntax when you tried to define your procedure and it has not compiled.
VAR is short for VARIABLE and defines a PL/SQL bind variable.
This declaration has the syntax:
VAR[IABLE] [variable [type] ]
where type represents one of the following:
NUMBER
CHAR
CHAR (n [CHAR | BYTE])
NCHAR
NCHAR (n)
VARCHAR2 (n [CHAR | BYTE])
NVARCHAR2 (n)
BLOB
BFILE
CLOB
NCLOB
REFCURSOR
BINARY_FLOAT
BINARY_DOUBLE
So with:
var cl CLOB;
you are declaring a variable using the VAR keyword and the variable is named cl and has the type CLOB.
Also, your CREATE PROCEDURE statement has a syntax error as you cannot have the single quotes around the procedure name. For example:
CREATE PROCEDURE procedure_name (clb OUT CLOB)
IS
BEGIN
clb := 'test';
END;
/
Then:
VAR cl CLOB;
EXECUTE procedure_name( :cl );
PRINT cl;
Outputs:
test
Updated:
SQL Fiddle
Oracle 11g R2 Schema Setup:
CREATE TABLE ERROR_DETAILS(
ERROR_ID NUMBER,
ERROR_CODE NUMBER,
ERROR_DATE DATE,
PROCEDURE_NAME VARCHAR2(30),
ERROR_MSG VARCHAR2(512)
)
/
CREATE PROCEDURE procedure_name (cl OUT CLOB)
IS
BEGIN
SELECT DUMMY
INTO cl
FROM dual
WHERE ROWNUM = 1;
EXCEPTION
WHEN
OTHERS THEN
DECLARE
err_num NUMBER := SQLCODE;
err_msg VARCHAR2(512) := SQLERRM;
BEGIN
INSERT INTO /* ODS_CONTROL. */ ERROR_DETAILS(
ERROR_ID,
ERROR_CODE,
ERROR_DATE,
PROCEDURE_NAME,
ERROR_MSG
) VALUES (
TO_NUMBER( TO_CHAR( CURRENT_TIMESTAMP, 'YYYYMMDDHH24MISSFF9' ) ),
err_num,
SYSDATE,
'PRC_FLEXI_CARD',
err_msg
);
END;
END;
/
Query 1:
SELECT * FROM USER_ERRORS
Results:
No rows selected