Advanced Oracle PL/SQL Programming with Packages

5.2. p: a DBMS_OUTPUT Substitute

The p (Put) package provides a powerful, flexible substitute (and one that requires minimal typing) for Oracle's builtin DBMS_OUTPUT.PUT_LINE package. See Chapter 7 for details.

5.2.1. Toggling output from the p package

PROCEDURE turn_on;

Turn on output from the p.l procedure (the default). Equivalent to calling DBMS_OUTPUT.ENABLE to enable output from DBMS_OUTPUT.

PROCEDURE turn_off;

Turn off output from the p.l procedure. This setting can be overridden in a particular call to p.l by specifying TRUE for the final show argument.

5.2.2. Setting the line separator

PROCEDURE set_linesep (linesep_in IN VARCHAR2);

Sets the character(s) to be recognized as the line separator in your PL/SQL code (default is =). A line that consists only of the line separator will be displayed by p.l as a blank line.

FUNCTION linesep RETURN VARCHAR2;

Returns the line separator character(s).

5.2.3. Setting the line prefix

PROCEDURE set_prefix (prefix_in IN VARCHAR2 := c_prefix);

Sets the character(s) used as a prefix to the text displayed by the p.l procedure.

The c_prefix constant is defined in the p package as CHR(8).

FUNCTION prefix RETURN VARCHAR2;

Returns the prefix character(s).

5.2.4. The overloadings of the l procedure

PROCEDURE l (date_in IN DATE, mask_in IN VARCHAR2 := PLV.datemask, show_in IN BOOLEAN := FALSE); PROCEDURE l (number_in IN NUMBER, show_in IN BOOLEAN := FALSE); PROCEDURE l (char_in IN VARCHAR2, show_in IN BOOLEAN := FALSE); PROCEDURE ...