Define Stored Procedure

Introduction

Stored procedures are precompiled database queries that improve the security, efficiency and usability of database client/server applications. Developers specify a stored procedure in terms of input and output variables. They then compile the code on the database platform and make it available to aplication developers for use in other environments, such as web applications.

All of the major database platforms, including Oracle, SQL Server and MySQL support stored procedures. The major benefits of this technology are the substantial performance gains from precompiled execution, the reduction of client/server traffic, development efficiency gains from code reuse and abstraction and the security controls inherent in granting users permissions on specific stored procedures instead of the underlying database tables.

You would think that returning a JDBC result set from an Oracle PL/SQL stored procedure would be quite straightforward. Unfortunately, it's not as easy as it sounds. But reading this article should tell you all you need to know. Any contributions or corrections welcome - please post on our discussion forum. Sorry, but we can't reply to individual emails.

There are three basic steps. First, you have to write the stored procedure - which in Oracle is a bit tricky if you're not familiar with PL/SQL. Testing it using the Oracle command-line tool sqlplus is also quirky. And calling it via JDBC isn't exactly standard either.
Writing the stored procedure

If you are used to Sybase or SQLServer, returning a result set from a stored procedure is easy. Just finish the procedure with a "select x,y,z from my_table", selecting whatever columns you wish to return.