IF EXISTS condition not working with PLSQL - sql

Question

I am trying to print the TEXT when condition is TRUE. The select code is perfectly working fine. It's showing 403 value when i only run select code. But I have to print some text when condition exists. What's the problem with following code.
BEGIN
IF EXISTS(
SELECT CE.S_REGNO FROM
COURSEOFFERING CO
JOIN CO_ENROLMENT CE
ON CE.CO_ID = CO.CO_ID
WHERE CE.S_REGNO=403 AND CE.COE_COMPLETIONSTATUS = 'C' AND CO.C_ID = 803
)
THEN
DBMS_OUTPUT.put_line('YES YOU CAN');
END;
Here is the error report:
Error report:
ORA-06550: line 5, column 1:
PLS-00103: Encountered the symbol "JOIN" when expecting one of the following:
) , with group having intersect minus start union where
connect
06550. 00000 - "line %s, column %s:\n%s"
*Cause: Usually a PL/SQL compilation error.
*Action:

Answer 1

IF EXISTS() is semantically incorrect. EXISTS condition can be used only inside a SQL statement. So you might rewrite your pl/sql block as follows:
declare
l_exst number(1);
begin
select case
when exists(select ce.s_regno
from courseoffering co
join co_enrolment ce
on ce.co_id = co.co_id
where ce.s_regno=403
and ce.coe_completionstatus = 'C'
and ce.c_id = 803
and rownum = 1
)
then 1
else 0
end into l_exst
from dual;
if l_exst = 1
then
DBMS_OUTPUT.put_line('YES YOU CAN');
else
DBMS_OUTPUT.put_line('YOU CANNOT');
end if;
end;
Or you can simply use count function do determine the number of rows returned by the query, and rownum=1 predicate - you only need to know if a record exists:
declare
l_exst number;
begin
select count(*)
into l_exst
from courseoffering co
join co_enrolment ce
on ce.co_id = co.co_id
where ce.s_regno=403
and ce.coe_completionstatus = 'C'
and ce.c_id = 803
and rownum = 1;
if l_exst = 0
then
DBMS_OUTPUT.put_line('YOU CANNOT');
else
DBMS_OUTPUT.put_line('YES YOU CAN');
end if;
end;

Answer 2

Unfortunately PL/SQL doesn't have IF EXISTS operator like SQL Server. But you can do something like this:
begin
for x in ( select count(*) cnt
from dual
where exists (
select 1 from courseoffering co
join co_enrolment ce on ce.co_id = co.co_id
where ce.s_regno = 403
and ce.coe_completionstatus = 'C'
and co.c_id = 803 ) )
loop
if ( x.cnt = 1 )
then
dbms_output.put_line('exists');
else
dbms_output.put_line('does not exist');
end if;
end loop;
end;
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