Oracle - return newly inserted key value

Question

We have a table with a Primary Key that gets populated on insert by a trigger on the table - the trigger gets the next sequence number from a sequence we created for the table a

Answer 1

I don't know if it works with triggers but the RETURNING clause may be what you're looking for:

INSERT INTO my_table (col_1, col_2)
  VALUES ('foo', 'bar')
  RETURNING pk_id INTO my_variable;

Answer 2

why not just return the_sequence.currval ?

Answer 3

I think you are looking for a Callable Statement. Here's javadoc if you are trying to get to it from Java.