Can I alias columns from a cursor in SELECT statement in Oracle? - sql

Question

I am writing a client application that calls a stored procedure from an Oracle database via a select statement. The stored procedure returns a cursor. I need to define aliases for the columns returned by this cursor, and I need to do it within my select statement.
I cannot make any changes to the Oracle database. I cannot write any PLSQL. The only thing I can do with this database is query it.
Please advise.
Background: This stored procedure is one of many called inside an application framework. Currently, all calls return their results in XML format, using this syntax to do the conversion:
select XMLType.createXML(package_name.storedProcName('1', '2', '3')).getClobVal() as sresult from dual;
However, this cursor contains two columns with the same name (specifically "NAME"). When this query is run in TOAD, the column automatically gets appended a "_1", however the XMLType results in illogical XML, like this:
<?xml version="1.0"?>
<ROWSET>
<ROW>
<ID>1</ID>
<NAME>BRUCE WAYNE</NAME>
<NAME>BATMAN</NAME>
</ROW>
</ROWSET>
This is why I must alias the columns before they are converted to XMLType. I want the query output to contain no duplicate column names so that the XML can be like this instead (with no duplicate tags):
<?xml version="1.0"?>
<ROWSET>
<ROW>
<ID>1</ID>
<NAME>BRUCE WAYNE</NAME>
<OTHER_NAME>BATMAN</OTHER_NAME>
</ROW>
</ROWSET>

Answer 1

i would go for a stylesheet for this.
eg:
SQL> select XMLType.createXML(foo()).transform(xmltype('<xsl:stylesheet xmlns:xsl="http://www.w3.org/1999/XSL/Transform" version="1.0">
2 <xsl:template match="/ROWSET/ROW/NAME[2]">
3 <NAME_1>
4 <xsl:apply-templates select="#*|node()"/>
5 </NAME_1>
6 </xsl:template>
7 <xsl:template match="#*|node()">
8 <xsl:copy>
9 <xsl:apply-templates select="#*|node()"/>
10 </xsl:copy>
11 </xsl:template>
12 </xsl:stylesheet>')) as sresult from dual
13 /
SRESULT
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
<ROWSET>
<ROW>
<ID>1</ID>
<NAME>BRUCE WAYNE</NAME>
<NAME_1>BATMAN</NAME_1>
</ROW>
<ROW>
<ID>2</ID>
<NAME>CLARK KENT</NAME>
<NAME_1>SUPERMAN</NAME_1>
</ROW>
</ROWSET>
i.e. we replace the 2nd NAME occurrence (/ROWSET/ROW/NAME[2]) in the ROW element with NAME_1. everything else gets copied as-is.