PLSQL 9 2 SG

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Database Programming with

PL/SQL
9-2
Using Functions in SQL Statements
Copyright © 2020, Oracle and/or its affiliates. All rights reserved.
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Objectives
This lesson covers the following objectives:
−List the advantages of user-defined functions in SQL
statements
−List where user-defined functions can be called from within a
SQL statement
−Describe the restrictions on calling functions from SQL
statements
PLSQL 9-2
Using Functions in SQL Statements Copyright © 2020, Oracle and/or its affiliates. All rights reserved. 3
3
Purpose
• In this lesson, you learn how to use functions within
SQL statements
• If the SQL statement processes many rows in a table,
the function executes once for each row processed by
the SQL statement
• For example, you could calculate the tax to be paid by
every employee using just one function
PLSQL 9-2
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What Is a User-Defined Function?
• A user-defined function is a function that is created by
the PL/SQL programmer
• GET_DEPT_NAME and CALCULATE_TAX are examples
of user-defined functions, whereas UPPER, LOWER,
and LPAD are examples of system-defined functions
automatically provided by Oracle
• Most system functions, such as UPPER, LOWER, and
LPAD are stored in a package named SYS.STANDARD
• Packages are covered in a later section
• These system functions are often called built-in
functions
PLSQL 9-2
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Advantages of Functions in SQL Statements
• If used in the WHERE clause of a SELECT statement,
functions can increase efficiency by insuring all of the
desired rows are returned
• For example, in a large database of employees, you
could have more than one employee with the same
last name
• If you use the following code, you find an employee
with the last name of "Taylor," but not the employee
whose last name was entered as "taylor"
SELECT * FROM employees
WHERE last_name = 'Taylor';
PLSQL 9-2
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• How many different ways would you have to search to
find all possible examples of "Taylor“?
• By adding the UPPER function to the WHERE clause,
you can find all examples with one search
SELECT * FROM employees
WHERE UPPER(last_name) = UPPER('TAylor');
• This code will return employees whose last name was

stored as "Taylor," "TAYLOR," "taylor," or "TAylor"
• Likewise, it doesn't matter how the user enters the
search criteria, as in this case, it was entered in all
lower case ("TAylor")
PLSQL 9-2
In this example, we used the system-defined UPPER function to insure all the rows we wanted
were returned by a single search. User-defined functions could be used in the same way.
Functions also could be used to eliminate unwanted rows. This is often called filtering the data.
The key point in either event is improving system efficiency and accuracy. In the example in the
slide, we reduce the network traffic (the number of calls from the application to the database) by
returning all the required rows in one SQL statement. If we used a function to filter the data,
reducing the number of rows returned by the SQL statement, this would also reduce network
traffic by sending only the rows needed.
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• Functions in SQL statements can also manipulate data
values
• For example, for an end-of-year social event, you want
(just for fun) to print name-tags for every employee
with the characters reversed, so “Mary Jones”
becomes “senoJ yraM”
• You can create a user-defined function called
reverse_name, which does this, then code:
SELECT reverse_name(last_name, first_name) FROM employees;
PLSQL 9-2
Without the REVERSE_NAME function, the names would have to be reversed by extra code within
the application, which is less efficient (and may not be possible).
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• User-defined functions can extend SQL where activities
are too complex, too awkward, or unavailable with
regular SQL
• Functions can also help us overcome repeatedly
writing the same code
• For example, you want to calculate how long an
employee has been working for your business,
rounded to a whole number of months
PLSQL 9-2
Functions are used all the time in programming. Functions can be pre-written (called system-
defined functions or system functions) or newly created by the programmer (called user-defined
functions). There are many system functions in modern programming languages. Before creating
new functions, check the list of existing functions in your system so that you will not waste time by
writing a function that already exists.
For more information about system functions in Oracle databases, check out the latest Database
SQL Language Reference (for Database 12c, go to
http://docs.oracle.com/database/121/SQLRF/toc.htm).
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• You could create a user-defined function called
how_many_months to do this
• Then, the application programmer can code:
SELECT employee_id, how_many_months(hire_date)
FROM employees;
PLSQL 9-2
Question: Without the user-defined database function how_many_months, how could you code
this SELECT statement?
Answer: SELECT employee_id, ROUND(MONTHS_BETWEEN(SYSDATE, hire_date)) FROM

employees;
If you needed this value in more than one place, it would be easier to create and save a user-
defined function for this calculation that could be called whenever needed.
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Function in SQL Expressions: Example
• Create a function to determine each employee's taxes
CREATE OR REPLACE FUNCTION tax(p_value IN NUMBER)
RETURN NUMBER IS
BEGIN
RETURN (p_value * 0.08);
END tax;
SELECT employee_id, last_name, salary, tax(salary)
FROM employees
WHERE department_id = 50;
EMPLOYEE_ID LAST_NAME SALARY TAX(SALARY)
124 Mourgos 5800 464
141 Rajs 3500 280
142 Davies 3100 248
143 Matos 2600 208
144 Vargas 2500 200
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PLSQL 9-2
Using Functions in SQL Statements Copyright © 2020, Oracle and/or its affiliates. All rights reserved.
While this may seem like a trivial function (“Why not just hard-code the * 0.08 in the SELECT
statement?”), this function is quite beneficial. Suppose you use this tax function in a hundred
places in ten thousand lines of code in a huge application, and then the government raises the tax
rate to 8.5%. Using this function, you only have to change one line of code and the whole
application is up to speed with the new tax rate.
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Where Can You Use User-Defined Functions in a SQL
Statement?
• User-defined functions act like built-in single-row
functions, such as UPPER,LOWER, and LPAD
• They can be used in:
−The SELECT column-list of a query
−Conditional expressions in the WHERE and HAVING clauses
−The ORDER BY and GROUP BY clauses of a query
−The VALUES clause of the INSERT statement
−The SET clause of the UPDATE statement
−In short, they can be used anywhere that you have a value or
expression
PLSQL 9-2
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Where Can You Use User-Defined Functions in a SQL
Statement?
• This example shows the user-defined function tax
being used in four places within a single SQL statement
SELECT employee_id, tax(salary)
FROM employees
WHERE tax(salary) > (SELECT MAX(tax(salary))
FROM employees
WHERE department_id = 20)
ORDER BY tax(salary) DESC;
• The function makes this code easier to read and much

easier to update if the tax rate changes
PLSQL 9-2
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Restrictions on Using Functions in SQL Statements
• To use a user-defined function within a SQL statement,
the function must conform to the rules and restrictions
of the SQL language
• The function can accept only valid SQL datatypes as IN
parameters, and must RETURN a valid SQL datatype
• PL/SQL-specific types, such as BOOLEAN and
%ROWTYPE are not allowed
• SQL size limits must not be exceeded (PL/SQL allows a
VARCHAR2 variable to be up to 32 KB in size, but prior
to Oracle 12c, SQL allowed only 4 KB)
PLSQL 9-2
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• User-defined functions may use positional, named, and
mixed notation for identifying arguments
• Parameters for system functions must be specified with
positional notation
• Example:
SELECT employee_id, tax(p_value => salary)
FROM employees;
SELECT employee_id, UPPER(last_name)

FROM employees;
SELECT employee_id, UPPER(arg1 => last_name)
FROM employees;
• The third SELECT statement causes an error
PLSQL 9-2
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• Functions called from a SELECT statement cannot
contain DML statements
• Functions called from an UPDATE or DELETE statement
on a table cannot query or contain DML on the same
table
• Functions called from any SQL statement cannot end
transactions (that is, cannot execute COMMIT or
ROLLBACK operations)
PLSQL 9-2
There are good reasons for these restrictions. For example, a SQL SELECT statement is not allowed
to modify stored data. Therefore, a function used within a SQL SELECT statement must not modify
stored data, i.e., cannot perform any DML.
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• Functions called from any SQL statement cannot issue
DDL (for example, CREATE TABLE) or DCL (for example,
ALTER SESSION) because they also do an implicit
COMMIT
• Calls to subprograms that break these restrictions are
also not allowed in a function
PLSQL 9-2
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Restrictions on Using Functions in SQL Statements:
Example 1
CREATE OR REPLACE FUNCTION dml_call_sql(p_sal NUMBER)
RETURN NUMBER IS
BEGIN
INSERT INTO employees(employee_id, last_name, email,
hire_date, job_id, salary)
VALUES(1, 'Frost', '[email protected]',
SYSDATE, 'SA_MAN', p_sal);
RETURN (p_sal + 100);
END dml_call_sql;
UPDATE employees
SET salary = dml_call_sql(2000)
WHERE employee_id = 174;
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PLSQL 9-2
Using Functions in SQL Statements Copyright © 2020, Oracle and/or its affiliates. All rights reserved.
This function performs DML on EMPLOYEES, and yet we are trying to use it in a SQL statement
which also performs DML on the same table.
It is better programming practice to use procedures, rather than functions, to perform DML.
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Restrictions on Using Functions in SQL Statements:
Example 2
• The following function queries the EMPLOYEES table
CREATE OR REPLACE FUNCTION query_max_sal (p_dept_id NUMBER)
RETURN NUMBER IS
v_num NUMBER;
BEGIN
SELECT MAX(salary) INTO v_num FROM employees
WHERE department_id = p_dept_id;
RETURN (v_num);
END;
• When used within the following DML statement, it

returns the “mutating table” error message similar to
the error message shown in the previous slide
UPDATE employees
SET salary = query_max_sal(department_id)
WHERE employee_id = 174;
PLSQL 9-2
This function queries the EMPLOYEES table and the UPDATE statement performs DML on the same
table.
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Terminology
Key terms used in this lesson included:
−User-defined function
PLSQL 9-2
• User-Defined Function – A function created by the PL/SQL programmer that can be used
anywhere there is a value or function.
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Summary
In this lesson, you should have learned how to:
−List the advantages of user-defined functions in SQL
statements
−List where user-defined functions can be called from within a
SQL statement
−Describe the restrictions on calling functions from SQL
statements
PLSQL 9-2
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1

Database Programming with

Copyright © 2020, Oracle and/or its affiliates. All rights reserved.

• This code will return employees whose last name was

Answer: SELECT employee_id, ROUND(MONTHS_BETWEEN(SYSDATE, hire_date)) FROM

• The function makes this code easier to read and much

SELECT employee_id, UPPER(last_name)

• The third SELECT statement causes an error

• When used within the following DML statement, it

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