How to fetch data in nested record in PL/SQL? - plsql

Question

I was trying to work on nested record example.
Please have a look at declaration section.
DECLARE
TYPE r_emp IS RECORD (
name VARCHAR2(50),
dept_rec departments%ROWTYPE
);
r_emp_row r_emp;
BEGIN
SELECT emp.first_name||' '||emp.last_name,dept.*
INTO r_emp_row
FROM employees emp,departments dept
WHERE emp.department_id = dept.department_id
AND emp.employee_id = 100;
DBMS_OUTPUT.PUT_LINE('Name:'||r_emp_row.name);
DBMS_OUTPUT.PUT_LINE('Department ID:'||r_emp_row.dept_rec.department_id);
DBMS_OUTPUT.PUT_LINE('Department Name:'||r_emp_row.dept_rec.department_name);
EXCEPTION
when others then
null;
END;
I am trying to run above block but getting error as below:
Error report -
ORA-06550: line 10, column 8:
PLS-00597: expression 'R_EMP_ROW' in the INTO list is of wrong type
ORA-06550: line 11, column 3:
PL/SQL: ORA-00904: : invalid identifier
ORA-06550: line 9, column 3:
PL/SQL: SQL Statement ignored
06550. 00000 - "line %s, column %s:\n%s"
*Cause: Usually a PL/SQL compilation error.
Help appreciated.

Answer 1

Your record type r_emp is a composite of one scalar attribute and one record, so you will need to reflect that in the select into. Something like:
select emp.first_name||' '||emp.last_name, dept.*
into r_emp_row.name, r_emp_row.deptrec.dempno, r_emp_row.deptrec.dname ...
btw unrelated to the problem, when others then null is a famously dangerous construction:
What is bad in "When Others Then Null" in PL/SQL?
http://www.orafaq.com/wiki/WHEN_OTHERS
http://tkyte.blogspot.co.uk/2008/06/when-others-then-null-redux.html
What if there is no employee 100? Fine, it does nothing - perhaps that's OK. What if there is an employee 100 but there is a corrupt block in the index causing the query to fail with ORA-01578: ORACLE data block corrupted, or not, depending on the execution plan? It does nothing and doesn't tell you, and you'll think there's no employee 100.