pl/sql procedure with variable numbers of parameters - sql

I want to know if I can create a PL/SQL procedure that the number of parameters and their types changes.
For example procedure p1.
I can use it like this
p1 (param1, param2,......., param n);
i want to pass table name and data in procedure, but the attributes change for every table,
create or replace PROCEDURE INSERTDATA(NOMT in varchar2) is
num int;
BEGIN
EXECUTE IMMEDIATE 'SELECT count(*) FROM user_tables WHERE table_name = :1'
into num using NOMT ;
IF( num < 1 )
THEN
dbms_output.put_line('table not exist !!! ');
ELSE
dbms_output.put_line('');
-- here i want to insert parameters in the table,
-- but the table attributes are not the same !!
END IF;
NULL;
END INSERTDATA;

As far as I can tell, no, you can not. Number and datatypes of all parameters must be fixed.
You could pass a collection as a parameter (and have different number of values within it), but - that's still a single parameter.
Where would you want to use such a procedure?

If you need to store, update and query a variable amount of information, might I recommend switching to JSON queries and objects in Oracle. Oracle has deep support for both fixed and dynamic querying of json data, both in SQL and PLSQL.

i want to pass table name and data in procedure, but the attributes change for every table,
The problem with such a universal procedure is that something needs to know the structure of the target table. Your approach demands that the caller has to discover the projection of the table and arrange the parameters in a correct fashion.
In no particular order:
This is bad practice because it requires the calling program to do the hard work regarding the data dictionary.
Furthermore it breaks the Law Of Demeter because the calling program needs to understand things like primary keys (sequences, identity columns, etc), foreign key lookups, etc
This approach mandates that all columns must be populated; it makes no allowance for virtual columns, optional columns, etc
To work the procedure would have to use dynamic SQL, which is always hard work because it turns compilation errors into runtime errors, and should be avoided if at all possible.
It is trivially simple to generate a dedicated insert procedure for each table in a schema, using dynamic SQL against the data dictionary. This is the concept of the Table API. It's not without its own issues but it is much safer than what your question proposes.

Related

How to suppress record sets returned by SELECT statements in a Stored Procedure

I'm writing a stored procedure which checks for the existence of various tables in various databases, as well as the permissions that the user executing the stored procedure has on those tables. The stored procedure itself resides within a user database (i.e. it's not in the Master db).
To perform my checks, my stored procedure contains lots of SELECT statements. Each of those obviously returns a record set. What I would like is to somehow suppress these record sets so that they are not returned by the stored procedure, and instead return my own, single record set which is just a collection of messages relating to each check the stored procedure performs.
I think the obvious answer is to use a table-valued function instead, but I've not been able to recreate my tests successfully in a Function as they appear in the stored procedure. For starters, I'm having to use temporary tables (not possible in a function) and dynamic SQL (not very compatible with table parameters).
I think I've basically got two choices:
Rewrite my stored procedure as a function and figure out how to do the checks a different way.
Continue using my stored procedure and use an OUTPUT parameter to return my result messages, probably as a delimited string, and in the associated ASP.NET application just ignore all the record sets the stored procedure returns .
Neither of these solutions is very satisfactory. Before I spend any more time pursuing either one, is there a way to discard the record sets produced by the SELECT statements in a stored procedure and explicitly define what record I want it to return?
Hmm, I only can speculate here...
Are you using something like
SELECT ...;
IF ##rowcount > 0
BEGIN
...
END;
?
Then you can rewrite it using something like
IF EXISTS (SELECT ...)
BEGIN
...
END;
or
DECLARE #variable integer;
SELECT #variable = count(*) ...;
IF #variable > 0
BEGIN
...
END;
In general point the results of your queries to a target (variable, table, expression, ...), then they don't get outputted.
And then just execute the query for your desired result in the end.
In my opinion, here is almost no reason to have stored procedures produce record sets. That is what stored functions are for. On occasion, it is needed, because of the use of dynamic SQL or other stored procedures, but not as a general practice. Much, much too often, I see stored procedures being used where stored functions or views are more appropriate.
What should you do? Even SELECT statement in the stored procedure should be one of the following:
Setting (local) variables.
Saving the results in a temporary table or table variable.
The logic for the stored procedure should be working on the local variables. The results should be returned using OUTPUT parameters.
If you need to return rows in a tabular format, you can do that using tables explicitly (such as a global temporary table or real table). Or, you can have one SELECT at the end that does return a single result set. However, if you need this and can phrase the stored procedure as a function, that is better in my opinion.

How to demonstrate SQL injection in where clause?

I want to demonstrate the insecurity of some webservices that we have. These send unsanitized user input to an Oracle database Select statements.
SQL injection on SELECT statements is possible (through the WHERE clause), however I am having a hard time to demonstrate it as the same parameter gets placed in other queries as well during the same webservice call.
E.g:
' or client_id = 999'--
will exploit the first query but as the same WS request calls runs other SQL SELECTs, it will return an oracle error on the next query because the client_id is referred to by an alias in the second table.
I am looking to find something more convincing rather than just having an ORA error returned such as managing to drop a table in the process. However I do not think this is possible from a Select statement.
Any ideas how I can cause some data to change, or maybe get sensitive data to be included as part of an ORA error?
It's not very easy to change data, but it's still possible. Function that created with pragma autonomous_transaction can contain dml and may be called in where. For instance,
CREATE OR REPLACE FUNCTION test_funct return int
IS
pragma autonomous_transaction;
BEGIN
DELETE FROM test_del;
commit;
return 0;
end;
-- and then
SELECT null from dual where test_funct()=1;
Another option you try creating huge subquery in WHERE which in turn may cause huge performance issue on server.
You do not need a custom function, you can use a sub-query:
" or client_id = (SELECT 999 FROM secret_table WHERE username = 'Admin' AND password_hash = '0123456789ABCD')"
If the query succeeds then you know that:
There is a table called secret_table that can be seen by the user executing this query (even if there is not a user interface that would typically be used to directly interact with that table);
That it has the columns username and password_hash;
That there is a user called Admin; and
That the admin user has a password that hashes to 0123456789ABCD.
You can repeat this and map the structure of the entire database and check for any values in the database.

Inserting a record in sybase db table using stored procedure - delphi programming

I am new at programming with delphi. I am currently creating a simple notebook program and i need some help. I have a form called contacts with 5 tEdit fields. I am thinking i could create a stored procedure in my sybase database to insert record into Contacts table, so I can call it with my delphi programm. How do I call this procedure in delphi? the values that will be inserted should be taken from users input into these tEdit fields. Anyone has any suggestions? Or am I thinking the wrong way? thanks in advance
You have several options here, and it will depend on what VCL controls you are using.
(1). You can insert via a tTable component. This let's you have a quick, easy, low level control. You drop the component on the form, set the component properties (tablename, etc), then something like
MyTable.Open;
MyTable.Insert; (or maybe append)
MyTable.FieldByName('MY_FIELD').AsString := 'Bob'; // set the field values
MyTable.post;
(2). Use SQL. Drop a SQL component on the form. Set the SQLText property, using parameters;
for example : "Insert into table (MyField) values :X". My opinion is that this is easier to do in complex situations, correlated subselects, etc.
MySQL.Close;
MySQL.ParamByName('X').AsString := 'BOB';
ExecSQL;
(3). Use stored procedures. - The advantage to this is that they are useable by multiple applications, and can be changed easily. If you want to update the SQL code, you update it once (in the database), versus having to change it in an app, and then distribute the app to multiple users.
The code for this will be nearly identify to (2), although I don't know the specifics of your VCL library. In effect though, you will specify the routine to run, specify the parameter values, and then execute the stored procedure.
Note that all these routines will return an error code or exception code. It is best practice to always check for that...
Here is a little more complex example, using a SQL statement called qLoader. qLoader exists on a datamodule. I am passing a parameter, executing the SQL statement, then iterating through all the results.
try
with dmXLate.qLoader do
begin
Close;
ParamByName('DBTYPE').AsString := DBType;
Open;
while not dmXLate.qLoader.Eof do
begin
// Here is where we process each result
UserName:= dmXLate.qLoader.FieldByName('USERNAME').AsString;
dmXLate.qLoader.Next;
end;
end;
except
on E: Exception do
begin
ShowMEssage(E.Message);
exit;
end;
end;

nvarchar as query argument

I am trying to create a stored procedure that has a table and as an argument and executes some queries on that table.
So...
CREATE PROCEDURE blabla
#TableName nvarchar(50)
AS
DROP TABLE #TableName -- just an example, real queries are much longer
GO
This query gives me incorrect syntax error.
I know I can always use sp_executesql procedure, but I want a neater way where I don't need to worry about building an endless sql string.
Thanks
Here is a good article on why not to use Dynamic SQL in most cases as well as how to use it properly when it is the best solution:
http://www.sommarskog.se/dynamic_sql.html
Basically, doing what you are looking to do has a number of issues, including not allowing the system to properly check for permission issues before executing, not being able to optimize the stored procedure, and (most importantly) opening yourself up to SQL injection. You can mitigate this last issue somewhat but it involves a much more complex statement. Here is a quote from the above article:
Passing table and column names as parameters to a procedure with dynamic SQL is rarely a good idea for application code. (It can make perfectly sense for admin tasks). As I've said, you cannot pass a table or a column name as a parameter to sp_executesql, but you must interpolate it into the SQL string. Still you should protect it against SQL injection, as a matter of routine. It could be that bad it comes from user input.
To this end, you should use the built-in function quotename() (added in SQL 7). quotename() takes two parameters: the first is a string, and the second is a pair of delimiters to wrap the string in. The default for the second parameter is []. Thus, quotename('Orders') returns [Orders]. quotename() takes care of nested delimiters, so if you have a really crazy table name like Left]Bracket, quotename() will return [Left]]Bracket].
Note that when you work with names with several components, each component should be quoted separately. quotename('dbo.Orders') returns [dbo.Orders], but that is a table in an unknown schema of which the first four characters are d, b, o and a dot. As long as you only work with the dbo schema, best practice is to add dbo in the dynamic SQL and only pass the table name. If you work with different schemas, pass the schema as a separate parameter. (Although you could use the built-in function parsename() to split up a #tblname parameter in parts.)
I know you want a "neater" way of creating a dynamic statement but the reality is that no only is that not possible for how you want to do this, really you need to make the statement even more complex in order to ensure that the stored procedure is safe. I would try very hard to look at a different way to solve this issue (the article had a few suggestions). If you can avoid making this statement into dynamic SQL, you really should.
There are very few places that parameters can be used in T-SQL. Usually, it's exactly the places where you would find a quoted string - not just any arbitrary place within the query (where the query is necessarily in a string form anyway)
E.g., you could use a parameter or variable to replace 'hello' below:
SELECT * from Table2 where ColA = 'hello'
But you couldn't use it where Table2 appears. I don't know why people seem to expect such things to be possible in T-SQL, when it's generally not possible in most other programming languages either, outside of exec/eval style functions.
If you have multiple tables that share the same structure (names and types of columns), it generally suggests that what you should actually have is a single table, with possibly additional column(s) that distinguish between rows that would originally be in different tables. E.g. if you currently have:
CREATE TABLE MaleEmployees (
EmployeeNo int not null,
Name varchar(50) not null,
)
and
CREATE TABLE FemaleEmployees (
EmployeeNo int not null,
Name varchar(50) not null
)
You should instead have:
CREATE TABLE Employees (
EmployeeNo int not null,
Name varchar(50) not null,
Gender char(1) not null,
constraint CK_Gender_Valid CHECK (Gender in ('M','F'))
)
You can then query this Employees table, regardless of gender, rather than trying to parametrize the table name within your query. Of course, the above is an exaggerated example.
set #l = 'DROP TABLE ' + #TableName
exec #l
But if that's what you mean by 'endless string', not sure what you want
The correct syntax(notice the begin):
CREATE PROCEDURE blabla
#TableName nvarchar(50)
AS
begin
DROP TABLE #TableName -- just an example, real queries are much longer
END
GO

Access to Result sets from within Stored procedures Transact-SQL SQL Server

I'm using SQL Server 2005, and I would like to know how to access different result sets from within transact-sql. The following stored procedure returns two result sets, how do I access them from, for example, another stored procedure?
CREATE PROCEDURE getOrder (#orderId as numeric) AS
BEGIN
select order_address, order_number from order_table where order_id = #orderId
select item, number_of_items, cost from order_line where order_id = #orderId
END
I need to be able to iterate through both result sets individually.
EDIT: Just to clarify the question, I want to test the stored procedures. I have a set of stored procedures which are used from a VB.NET client, which return multiple result sets. These are not going to be changed to a table valued function, I can't in fact change the procedures at all. Changing the procedure is not an option.
The result sets returned by the procedures are not the same data types or number of columns.
The short answer is: you can't do it.
From T-SQL there is no way to access multiple results of a nested stored procedure call, without changing the stored procedure as others have suggested.
To be complete, if the procedure were returning a single result, you could insert it into a temp table or table variable with the following syntax:
INSERT INTO #Table (...columns...)
EXEC MySproc ...parameters...
You can use the same syntax for a procedure that returns multiple results, but it will only process the first result, the rest will be discarded.
I was easily able to do this by creating a SQL2005 CLR stored procedure which contained an internal dataset.
You see, a new SqlDataAdapter will .Fill a multiple-result-set sproc into a multiple-table dataset by default. The data in these tables can in turn be inserted into #Temp tables in the calling sproc you wish to write. dataset.ReadXmlSchema will show you the schema of each result set.
Step 1: Begin writing the sproc which will read the data from the multi-result-set sproc
a. Create a separate table for each result set according to the schema.
CREATE PROCEDURE [dbo].[usp_SF_Read] AS
SET NOCOUNT ON;
CREATE TABLE #Table01 (Document_ID VARCHAR(100)
, Document_status_definition_uid INT
, Document_status_Code VARCHAR(100)
, Attachment_count INT
, PRIMARY KEY (Document_ID));
b. At this point you may need to declare a cursor to repetitively call the CLR sproc you will create here:
Step 2: Make the CLR Sproc
Partial Public Class StoredProcedures
<Microsoft.SqlServer.Server.SqlProcedure()> _
Public Shared Sub usp_SF_ReadSFIntoTables()
End Sub
End Class
a. Connect using New SqlConnection("context connection=true").
b. Set up a command object (cmd) to contain the multiple-result-set sproc.
c. Get all the data using the following:
Dim dataset As DataSet = New DataSet
With New SqlDataAdapter(cmd)
.Fill(dataset) ' get all the data.
End With
'you can use dataset.ReadXmlSchema at this point...
d. Iterate over each table and insert every row into the appropriate temp table (which you created in step one above).
Final note:
In my experience, you may wish to enforce some relationships between your tables so you know which batch each record came from.
That's all there was to it!
~ Shaun, Near Seattle
There is a kludge that you can do as well. Add an optional parameter N int to your sproc. Default the value of N to -1. If the value of N is -1, then do every one of your selects. Otherwise, do the Nth select and only the Nth select.
For example,
if (N = -1 or N = 0)
select ...
if (N = -1 or N = 1)
select ...
The callers of your sproc who do not specify N will get a result set with more than one tables. If you need to extract one or more of these tables from another sproc, simply call your sproc specifying a value for N. You'll have to call the sproc one time for each table you wish to extract. Inefficient if you need more than one table from the result set, but it does work in pure TSQL.
Note that there's an extra, undocumented limitation to the INSERT INTO ... EXEC statement: it cannot be nested. That is, the stored proc that the EXEC calls (or any that it calls in turn) cannot itself do an INSERT INTO ... EXEC. It appears that there's a single scratchpad per process that accumulates the result, and if they're nested you'll get an error when the caller opens this up, and then the callee tries to open it again.
Matthieu, you'd need to maintain separate temp tables for each "type" of result. Also, if you're executing the same one multiple times, you might need to add an extra column to that result to indicate which call it resulted from.
Sadly it is impossible to do this. The problem is, of course, that there is no SQL Syntax to allow it. It happens 'beneath the hood' of course, but you can't get at these other results in TSQL, only from the application via ODBC or whatever.
There is a way round it, as with most things. The trick is to use ole automation in TSQL to create an ADODB object which opens each resultset in turn and write the results to the tables you nominate (or do whatever you want with the resultsets). you can also do it in DMO if you enjoy pain.
There are two ways to do this easily. Either stick the results in a temp table and then reference the temp table from your sproc. The other alternative is to put the results into an XML variable that is used as an OUTPUT variable.
There are, however, pros and cons to both of these options. With a temporary table, you'll need to add code to the script that creates the calling procedure to create the temporary table before modifying the procedure. Also, you should clean up the temp table at the end of the procedure.
With the XML, it can be memory intensive and slow.
You could select them into temp tables or write table valued functions to return result sets. Are asking how to iterate through the result sets?