It's a given that public procedures and functions are declared in the
package specification. But what general rule of thumb, if any, is used to
decide whether an object such as a cursor should be put in the package
specification or declared in the procedure itself in the package body?

"Dereck L. Dietz" <dietzdl@ameritech.net> wrote in message
news:VCs9g.86466$dW3.312@newssvr21.news.prodigy.co m...
> It's a given that public procedures and functions are declared in the
> package specification. But what general rule of thumb, if any, is used to
> decide whether an object such as a cursor should be put in the package
> specification or declared in the procedure itself in the package body?
>
>
Use normal scoping rules. Where do you want the object visible? Inside the
procedure only or global to all procedures?
Jim

Another way of phrasing Jim's response guidence would be to ask, "where
do I need to reference this from?"

PL/SQL tables, record types, collections, and reference cursors that
you want to pass to or from the package to other stored routines or
external programs are canidates for being defined in the package
specification.

HTH -- Mark D Powell --