Missing Keyword in EXECUTE IMMEDIATE SELECT INTO Statement - Oracle PL/SQL - sql

Question

The query below is a simplified version of the PL/SQL I am trying to run that just shows the general structure. In short, I am trying to extract information from SPECIAL_TABLE into the variables c, d.
DECLARE
c NUMBER;
d NUMBER;
BEGIN
FOR all_tab IN
(SELECT * FROM all_tables)
LOOP
BEGIN
EXECUTE IMMEDIATE 'SELECT a, d INTO c, d
FROM ' || :name || '.SPECIAL_TABLE WHERE name = '''
:name || ''' AND table_name = ''' || all_tab.table_name || ''';
...
EXCEPTION
WHEN OTHERS THEN
DBMS_OUTPUT.PUT_LINE('ERROR OCCURRED');
END;
END;
The above query does not work (by above query I mean the EXECUTE IMMEDIATE), and Oracle states 905 missing keyword. Following the flow here is followed as far as I can tell. Note that the ''' is so that I can escape a single ' for the SELECT statement, and then finish off the whole string all together. What is strange, is that I can follow the below code and run into no errors:
DECLARE
c NUMBER;
d NUMBER;
BEGIN
FOR all_tab IN
(SELECT * FROM all_tables)
LOOP
BEGIN
EXECUTE IMMEDIATE 'SELECT COUNT(*)
FROM ' || :name || '.SPECIAL_TABLE WHERE name = '''
:name || ''' AND table_name = ''' || all_tab.table_name || ''' INTO c;
...
EXCEPTION
WHEN OTHERS THEN
DBMS_OUTPUT.PUT_LINE('ERROR OCCURRED');
END;
END;
The only thing that changes is that I am using MAX(...), and seemingly no longer following the specified syntax in the above hyperlink. I'm not sure about the syntax part and why exactly this works, and MAX(...) would ensure only returning a single row. It seems like this would be the source of the problem, but when I perform the SELECT query by itself it only returns a single row with the two columns specified. The primary key for the table is PRIMARY KEY (a, b) so it shouldn't return more than one row regardless.
What am I missing here and how can I get my initial statement to work to assign the result of a query into multiple variables in Oracle 11g?

Answer 1

The link you provided is for the SELECT INTO statement. When selecting into variables using EXECUTE IMMEDIATE you have to play by EXECUTE IMMEDIATE's rules.
So instead of this:
EXECUTE IMMEDIATE 'SELECT x FROM myTable INTO y';
^ Incorrect: INTO is inside the string
You have to do this:
EXECUTE IMMEDIATE 'SELECT x FROM myTable' INTO y;
^ Correct: INTO is an EXECUTE IMMEDIATE keyword
Your query would go something like this:
EXECUTE IMMEDIATE 'SELECT a, d '
|| 'FROM ' || :name || '.SPECIAL_TABLE '
|| 'WHERE name = ''' || :name || ''' AND table_name = ''' || all_tab.table_name || ''''
INTO c, d;