> The procedure 'test' is compiled successfully,but the result is: > categories_cur%NOTFOUND is true > which indicate no records in categories_cur,who can tell me why? Your cursor loops through all results, then after the last fetch prints the 'not found' message; it's not doing anything with the data it does select. Add these lines and you'll see what I mean. NOTFOUND really means END OF FETCH... BEGIN OPEN categories_cur(p_name); LOOP FETCH categories_cur INTOv_describe; IF(categories_cur%NOTFOUND) THEN DBMS_OUTPUT.PUT_LINE('categories_cur%NOTFOUND is true'); ELSE DBMS_OUTPUT.PUT_LINE(v_describe); END IF; END test; Regards Nigel