Oracle Database Interview Question:

Can You Assign Multiple Query Result Rows To a Variable?

Submitted by: Administrator

You can use "SELECT ... INTO variable" to assign query results to variables. But what happens if the SELECT statements return multiple rows? The answer is that you will get a run time error. The following tutorial exercise shows this error condition:

DECLARE
fname VARCHAR2(10);
lname VARCHAR2(10);
BEGIN
SELECT first_name, last_name INTO fname, lname
FROM employees WHERE employee_id = 100;
DBMS_OUTPUT.PUT_LINE('Name = ' || fname || ' ' || lname);
SELECT first_name, last_name INTO fname, lname
FROM employees WHERE employee_id > 100;
DBMS_OUTPUT.PUT_LINE('Name = ' || fname || ' ' || lname);
END;
/
ORA-01422: exact fetch returns more than requested number
of rows
ORA-06512: at line 8
Name = Steven King

Submitted by: Administrator