A simple pipelined version of print_table

Tom Kyte’s print_table procedure, available on
http://asktom.oracle.com/pls/apex/f?p=100:11:0::::P11_QUESTION_ID:1035431863958#14442395195806
seems to be very popular and there exist tricky variations on the theme, for example the following nice xml-trick by Sayan Malakshinov.

Please note that it is very easy to use the existing print_table-code to generate a pipelined version which can be used in SQL.
I use the following code since ages and it always does me a great job, so probably it is worth sharing.

create or replace function fprint_table
( p_query in varchar2,
  p_date_fmt in varchar2 default 'dd-mon-yyyy hh24:mi:ss' )
return sys.odcivarchar2list 
authid current_user
pipelined
   is
l varchar2(4000);
s integer default 1;
begin
  dbms_output.enable(buffer_size => null);
  
  print_table(
     p_query => p_query,
     p_date_fmt => p_date_fmt
  );

  loop
     dbms_output.get_line(line => l, status => s);
     exit when s != 0;
     begin
        pipe row(l);
     exception when no_data_needed then exit;
     end;
  end loop;
    
  return;

end fprint_table;
/

sokrates@11.2 > select * from table(fprint_table('select user,sysdate from dual'));

USER                          : SOKRATES
SYSDATE                       : 10-apr-2013 12:27:50
-----------------
1 row selected.