2. Can I set the number of parameters that a procedure accepts as variable and
then within the procedure count the number of actual values entered by the
user?

1. To my understanding oracle does not have construct like argc/argv.

2. Yes, you can set the number of parameters that a procedure can accept. and
with in procedure you can validate how many parameters were passed.

an example ..
       procedure check_parameters (value01 varchar2 Default NULL,
                                                             value02 number
Default NULL,
                                                             value03
varchar2 Default NULL,

.............................................
                                                             value10
varchar2 Default NULL) is
     Begin
              stmt..
              check_parameter...
     End.

HTH
Pradhan

Yes you can send multiple parameters to a function.

You declare the following in a package:

type vc_arr is table of varchar2(200) index by binary_integer;

then you use this in the procedure you are writing:

create or replace procedure my_proc (parms in  package_i_declared_in.vc_arr)
as

last_val varchar2(10);
i number default 1;

BEGIN

last_val :=parms.count; --this gives you the number of variables

and you access variables like this:
parms(1) etc.

obviously if you wanted the name of the parameter as well you would have two
such vraiables one for the name the other for the value.

Yes, if you want to pass arguments in the same way they are to the C main()
function.  A C main() looks like:

void main( int argc, char * argv[], char * env[] )
 

It takes:

argc = count of the args pointed to by argv
argv = array of pointers to strings
env  = array of pointers to environment strings (you know when you've gotten to
the end of this array when env[i] == NULL )
 

To do this in plsql, you would:
 

SQL> create or replace package types
  2  as
  3      type myArray is table of varchar2(2000) index by binary_integer;
  4  end;
  5  /

Package created.

SQL>
SQL>
SQL> create or replace procedure main( argv in types.myArray )
  2  is
  3  begin
  4          for i in 1 .. argv.count loop
  5          dbms_output.put_line( 'argv(' || i || ') = ' || argv(i) );
  6      end loop;
  7  end;
  8  /

Procedure created.

SQL>
SQL> declare
  2          args    types.myArray;
  3  begin
  4          args(1) := 'Some Data';
  5          args(2) := 'Some More Data';
  6          args(3) := 'The Last of the Data';
  7
  7          main( args );
  8  end;
  9  /
argv(1) = Some Data
argv(2) = Some More Data
argv(3) = The Last of the Data

PL/SQL procedure successfully completed.

Another way to do it might be to use DEFAULT parameters, for example:

create procedure main( arg1 in varchar2 DEFAULT NULL,
                       arg2 in varchar2 DEFAULT NULL,
                       ...
                       argN in varchar2 DEFAULT NULL )
as
....

Now i can call:

exec main
exec main( 'x' );
exec main( 'x', 'y' );
exec main( 'x', 'y', 'z' );
exec main( 'x', argN => '5' );

and so on...

Thomas Kyte
[email protected]
Oracle Service Industries
Reston, VA   USA

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