PL/SQL Questions

Two questions - 1st - knowing that I'm not supposed to use an exit to terminate a cursor FOR loop, what is the best way to get a single 'row' of data? Is a cursor even the best way? One example of where I am doing this is I am selecting and ordering data. I am fetching into a list of variables the first ordered occurrence of this data. These variables are then written to an output file. Then I exit my cursor. Any better way to do this?

2nd - Another problem I've come across is when I am fetching data from a cursor to make up a fixed width output file, one of the fields may contain tabs or carriage returns, which messes up the fixed-width file as they are interpreted. What is the best way to get rid of them or ignore them? Do I need to scan the string and do a replace or something?

Thanks in advance

Ed Received on Mon Nov 02 1998 - 17:24:23 CST