Oracle PL/SQL Programming: A Developer's Workbook

Intermediate

14-10.	Are parameters in PL/SQL passed by value or by reference?
14-11.	How many RETURNs should the executable section of a function contain?
14-12.	Should you include RETURNs in your function’s exception section?
14-13.	Should the following function have an exception section? If so, what should it handle? CREATE OR REPLACE FUNCTION deptname ( id_in IN department.department_id%TYPE ) RETURN VARCHAR2 IS retval department.name%TYPE; BEGIN SELECT name INTO retval FROM department WHERE department_id = id_in; RETURN retval; END deptname; /
14-14.	What are the restrictions on setting default values for parameters?
14-15.	What advantage is there to providing default values for parameters?
14-16.	Suppose that five years ago, a developer wrote a procedure with the following header: PROCEDURE calc_totals ( department_id_in IN department.department_id%TYPE) There are many calls to this procedure in a variety of production applications. A new requirement has now been requested by users to be able to calculate totals per department and also for sections within departments. How would you change the header of calc_totals so that: Developers can pass in the section ID in addition to the department ID. Existing calls to calc_totals will remain valid.
14-17.	Can you skip over parameters when you call a procedure or function?
14-18.	Given the header for the calc_profit procedure: PROCEDURE calc_profit (company_id_in IN NUMBER, profit_out OUT NUMBER fiscal_year_in IN NUMBER, profit_type_in IN VARCHAR2 := 'NET_PROFITS', ...