Is it possible to return table from oracle function?

 
In Oracle 9i and previous versions you could return table from a function by creating a type and a function which returns that type as pipelined function. In Oracle databases which have lower versions than 10g we should create that object on database. And it was a bit hard when you want to change the return structure.
We had to drop that type and recreate it. In Oracle 10g and higher verions we can return table from a function by no creating any type on database. We could do this by declaring a record in package spec. The code below works on Oracle databases which have version is 10g or higher.

PACKAGE PKG_PIPELINE IS
    TYPE record_type IS RECORD (
        string      varchar2(8192),
        nmbr        number,
        dt         date
    );
    TYPE tbl_record_type IS TABLE OF record_type;
    function f_test(cnt in number) RETURN tbl_record_type PIPELINED;
 
END; -- Package spec

PACKAGE BODY PKG_PIPELINE IS
    function f_test(cnt in number) RETURN tbl_record_type PIPELINED as
        PRAGMA AUTONOMOUS_TRANSACTION;
        out_rec     record_type;
    begin
      
        out_rec.string := 'A';
        out_rec.nmbr := 5;
        out_rec.dt := sysdate;
        pipe row (out_rec);
     
        for i in 1..2*cnt loop
            out_rec.string := 'B';
            out_rec.nmbr := i;
            out_rec.dt := sysdate-1;
            pipe row (out_rec);
        end loop;
        return;
    end;
  END;

Usage
select * from table(PKG_PIPELINE.f_test(3))