PL/SQL To Run Simple SQL Commands - sql

Question

Using basic SQL, I'm populating a table from another DB. This uses basic Delete statements to remove old data and Insert statements with a FROM clause using a DBLink. I'm attempting to transfer this to a package and have come up with this:
Package:
CREATE OR REPLACE
PACKAGE LOADDATA AS
procedure POPULATETABLE;
END LOADDATA;
PL/SQL (Package Body):
CREATE OR REPLACE
PACKAGE BODY LOADDATA AS
procedure POPULATETABLE AS
BEGIN
DELETE FROM DATATRANSFER;
INSERT INTO DATATRANSFER
SELECT VALUENUM, DATACONTENT, sysdate AS TRANSFER_DATA
FROM TRANSFERTABLE#DATALINK;
COMMIT;
NULL;
END POPULATETABLE;
END LOADDATA;
And to run the command, I would run:
exec LOADDATA.POPULATETABLE();
My question is should the procedure have an input/output parameter or declared variables? It has compiled and worked correctly but I'm unsure if I'm following PL/SQL methodology.

Answer 1

There is no rule to provide parameters.
Additonally you can insert record to log table which will store the start date, end date, number of records inserted and number of records deleted in case you need to track the batch execution periodically.
Also if this package is called by some web page or some application then you may need to create an exception block and send a Error Message as an output parameter in a User Readable Form.
EDIT:
Package Specification
CREATE OR REPLACE
PACKAGE LOADDATA AS
procedure POPULATETABLE(out_variable OUT VARCHAR2);
END LOADDATA;
Package Body
CREATE OR REPLACE
PACKAGE BODY LOADDATA AS
procedure POPULATETABLE(out_variable OUT VARCHAR2) AS
BEGIN
DELETE FROM DATATRANSFER
-- <TODO:INSERT records deleted and date into a log table>
INSERT INTO DATATRANSFER
SELECT VALUENUM, DATACONTENT, sysdate AS TRANSFER_DATA
FROM TRANSFERTABLE#DATALINK;
-- <TODO:INSERT records inserted and date into a log table>
COMMIT;
NULL;
-- Assign out_variable as success if comletes successfully
out_variable := 'SUCCESS';
EXCEPTION
-- WHEN OTHERS catches all exceptions Oracle error message is displayed in SQLERRM
WHEN OTHERS THEN
-- Assign out_variable with Error message if errors out
out_variable := 'Error :'||SQLERRM;
END POPULATETABLE;
END LOADDATA;