Return statement in PL/SQL Procedure.

Question: Can we use RETURN Statement in PL/SQL Procedure.?
Ans: Yes, we can !! ;)

Honestly, as far as I remember, I've never used return statements in my PL/SQL Procedures.
How about you ??

Of coarse, in PL/SQL functions RETURN statement is a mandatory thing. But what about procedures ??

Lets see how and where we can use of return statement in a procedure.
- You have procedure, that contains few lines of code.
- After validating certain condition, you don't need to proceed further. You want control to be returned to calling procedure/main program.

** Couple of approaches here **

One way of doing it is, handling USER defined EXCEPTIONs.
- you can check how to use  USER defined Exceptions. I am not covering it here. ;)
I used this approach many times until now. Big advantage of this way is, you can trap the ERROR code in your calling program.

Another way is having RETURN statement in your sub-routine/child program.
For example:
== sub-routine ==
procedure CHILD_PROC
-- declarations
begin
-- pl/sql statements
if CONDITION = TRUE then
RETURN ;
else
-- do something
end if ;
end CHILD_PROC ;

=== calling program ==
procedure MAIN_PROC
-- declarations
begin
-- pl/sql statements
-- call to child proc
CHILD_PROC();
-- few more statements
end MAIN_PROC ;

Here is some sample code.

-- child procedure.

create or replace procedure child_proc(p_boolean BOOLEAN) as
begin
dbms_output.put_line('in child_proc before return call');
if p_boolean then
return ;
end if ;
dbms_output.put_line('in child_proc after return');
end;
/

-- main procedure

create or replace procedure main_proc(p_boolean boolean) as
begin
dbms_output.put_line('before child_proc call');
child_proc(p_boolean) ;
dbms_output.put_line('after child_proc call');
end;
/

-- execution and  result check --

[1]

begin main_proc(TRUE); end ;

--output --

before child_proc call

in child_proc before return call

after child_proc call

Statement processed.

0.00 seconds

[2]

begin main_proc(FALSE); end ;

--output --

before child_proc call

in child_proc before return call

in child_proc after return

after child_proc call

Statement processed.

0.00 seconds