How this function works? - Oracle

Question

I have just started using Oracle procedures, using following procedure(made by our DBA department) in my code but having difficulty in understanding this procedure, I have googled a lot and read tutorials but still have confusion.

If anyone could explain this to me, I would really be gratefull.

 function SF_MY_IDENTITY(name IN VARCHAR2, fName in VARCHAR2 class in VARCHAR2,std_Id in VARCHAR2)return UD_CURSOR
is
cursorReturn UD_CURSOR;
grNo VARCHAR(100);
phone VARCHAR(100);

 begin

In above part I couldn't figure out what is this 'is' doing?what it is being used for?

 Open cursorReturn for
            SELECT
            grNo,
            phone
            FROM
                MY_SCHOOL MS
            WHERE
                MS.std_id=std_Id
                 AND MS.name=name
                 AND MS.fNameE=fName;

What is this part doing, what does open doing? and how the output variables 'grNo, phone' would be used in an irrelevant table(MY_SCHOOL)

Answer 1

1) The "is" token is part of the function definition in pl/sql 2) Opens a sql cursor.

I highly recommend that you read a book about pl/sql. For instance the oracle documentation.

Answer 2

It just takes few inputs and based on the input values it opens a cursor and returns it back.

But there is some comma missing and the code is incomplete. Based on what you have posted, this is what the function is doing.