The preceding section describes the general structure of a block. Blocks facilitate code execution in PolarDB. An anonymous block is unnamed and is not stored in the database. After an anonymous block is executed, it is cleared from the application buffer.

This anonymous block cannot be re-executed unless the block code is re-entered into the application.

Anonymous blocks are useful for quick execution of programs, such as testing programs.

In most cases, the same block of code will be re-executed many times. To repeatedly run a block of code without re-entering the code each time, you can convert an anonymous block into a procedure or function with some simple modifications. The following section describes how to create a procedure or function that can be stored in the database and repeatedly called by another procedure, function, or application.