Scope Rules

You cannot declare an exception twice in the similar block. Though, you can, declare the similar exception in 2 different blocks. The Exceptions declared in a block are considered local to that block and global to all its sub-blocks. As a block can reference only local or global exceptions, enclosing the blocks cannot reference the exceptions declared in the sub-block. If you re-declare a global exception in a sub-block, the local declarations prevail. Therefore, the sub-block cannot reference the global exception unless it was declared in the labeled block, in that situation the syntax below is valid:

block_label.exception_name

The illustration below describes the scope rules:

DECLARE

past_due EXCEPTION;

acct_num NUMBER;

BEGIN

DECLARE ---------- sub-block begins

past_due EXCEPTION; -- this declaration prevails

acct_num NUMBER;

BEGIN

...

IF ... THEN

RAISE past_due; -- this is not handled

END IF;

END; ------------- sub-block ends

EXCEPTION

WHEN past_due THEN -- does not handle RAISEd exception

...

END;

The enclosed blocks do not handle the raised exception as the declarations of past_due in the sub-block prevail. Though they share the similar name, the two past_due exceptions are unlike, just as the two acct_num variables share the similar name but are various variables. Hence, the RAISE statement and WHEN clause refer to various exception. To have the enclosing block handle the raised exception, you should remove its declaration from the sub-block or define the OTHERS handler.