PLS-00221: 'C1'(cursor) is not a procedure or is undefined

Question

I am creating a package to use with Jasper reports where I learnt that I need SYS_REFCURSOR but I cannot seem to be able to Loop my cursors:eg

create or replace PACKAGE BODY                                                                                                                                                                                                      fin_statement_spool
AS
   PROCEDURE fin_main_spool(vacid in VARCHAR2, vfromdate in date, vtodate in date,c1 out  SYS_REFCURSOR,c2 out  SYS_REFCURSOR)
   AS
      cramount            NUMBER;
      dramount            NUMBER;
      countcr             NUMBER;
      countdr             NUMBER;
BEGIN
    OPEN c1 FOR
        SELECT
            .......;
 OPEN c2  FOR
        SELECT ........;
 BEGIN
      FOR i IN c1--Error is here
      LOOP
        rnum        := 0;
        cramount    := 0;
        dramount    := 0;
        countdr     := 0;
        countcr     := 0;
       ..........

Isn't this the right way?

Answer 1

You appear to have confused explicit cursors, e.g.:

declare
  cursor cur is
  select dummy from dual;
begin
  for rec in cur
  loop
    dbms_output.put_line(rec.dummy);
  end loop;
end;
/

with a ref cursor - which is a pointer to an open cursor.

You would typically use a ref cursor to open a cursor in the db and pass it back to the calling app for it to loop through.

The way you have declared the ref cursors as out parameters and then tried to loop through them in the same procedure does not make sense - once you have fetched a record from a cursor, you cannot re-fetch it.

If you absolutely must loop through a ref cursor, you'd use this sort of syntax:

declare
  cur sys_refcursor;
  rec dual%rowtype;
begin
  open cur for select dummy from dual;
  loop
    fetch cur into rec;
    exit when cur%notfound;
    dbms_output.put_line(rec.dummy);
  end loop;
end;
/

but as I said, in general, you wouldn't be looping through ref cursors in the db, you'd be doing that in the calling code.

Perhaps if you updated your question with the requirements you're trying to fulfil, we could suggest a better way of doing it.