Signal from a procedure
As I review with my students, a stored function works like a standalone program, while a stored procedure runs in the scope of another program unit. For example, you can compare the result of a function as an expression in an IF
statement, like:
IF add_numbers(1,3) > 3 THEN ... ELSE ... END IF; |
You can’t call procedures inside an IF
statement, but you can call the procedure and use a single OUT
-mode (pass-by-reference) parameter from the procedure in a subsequent IF
statement. You can implement a a wait procedure like that with the following example.
The example first creates two tables, the road_runner
and coyote
tables:
-- Drop road_runner table if exists. DROP TABLE IF EXISTS road_runner; -- Create roadrunner table. CREATE TABLE road_runner ( road_runner_id int unsigned auto_increment primary key , road_runner_text varchar(20) , CONSTRAINT road_runner_nk UNIQUE (road_runner_text)); -- Drop coyote table if exists. DROP TABLE IF EXISTS coyote; -- Create coyote table. CREATE TABLE coyote ( coyote_id int unsigned auto_increment primary key , coyote_text varchar(20) , road_runner_id int unsigned , CONSTRAINT coyote_nk UNIQUE (coyote_text)); |
The following creates a procedure that:
- Writes data to two tables when the values are unique, returning a value of zero when it works.
- Writes data to neither table when the values to either table are non-unique, returning a value of one when it fails.
The procedure uses a 0
as a false value and a 1
as a true value. The use of a 0 and 1 for truth is a consistent approach for languages where they don’t support a Boolean data type.
-- Change the delimiter to a "$$" DELIMITER $$ -- Drop the paired procedure. DROP PROCEDURE IF EXISTS two_table$$ -- Create the paired procedure. CREATE PROCEDURE two_table (IN pv_road_runner_text varchar(20) ,IN pv_coyote_text varchar(20) , OUT pv_confirm_it int) BEGIN /* Declare a variable to hold a sequence value for an auto incrementing value. */ DECLARE lv_road_runner_id int unsigned; /* Declare a condition variable for attempting to write a non-unique record to a table. */ DECLARE duplicate CONDITION FOR 1062; /* Declare an event handler for a duplicate condition variable, rollback transaction, and set 1 as a false condition. */ DECLARE EXIT HANDLER FOR duplicate BEGIN ROLLBACK to all_or_none; SET pv_confirm_it = 1; END; /* Start the transaction. */ START TRANSACTION; /* Set the save point for a multiple table transaction. */ SAVEPOINT all_or_none; /* Insert into road runner table. */ INSERT INTO road_runner (road_runner_text) VALUES (pv_road_runner_text); /* Capture the auto incrementing sequence value as a local variable. */ SET lv_road_runner_id := last_insert_id(); /* Insert into the coyote table. */ INSERT INTO coyote (coyote_text ,road_runner_id) VALUES (pv_coyote_text ,lv_road_runner_id); /* Commit the record. */ COMMIT; /* Set the control variable to a true value. */ SET pv_confirm_it := 0; END; $$ DELIMITER ; |
You can test the pass-by-reference procedure with the following code:
-- Set a control variable with a null value. SET @sv_control := null; -- Query the results from a join between the road_runner and coyote tables. SELECT * FROM road_runner r INNER JOIN coyote c ON r.road_runner_id = c.road_runner_id; -- Call the two_table procedure with unique results. CALL two_table('Road Runner 1','Coyote 1',@sv_control); -- Query the control variable result from the second call to the -- two_table procedure. SELECT @sv_control AS "1st Insert"; -- Reset the value for a second test. SET @sv_control := 0; -- Call teh two_table procedure with unique results. CALL two_table('Road Runner 2','Coyote 1',@sv_control); -- Query the results from a join between the road_runner and coyote tables. SELECT * FROM road_runner r INNER JOIN coyote c ON r.road_runner_id = c.road_runner_id; -- Query the control variable result from the second call to the -- two_table procedure. SELECT @sv_control AS "2nd Insert"; |
I hope this helps anybody trying to implement a pass-by-reference procedure with a control variable. You can find other examples in Chapter 14 of Oracle Database 11g and MySQL 5.6 Developer Handbook (pp. 446-449 and 450-451).