How to dereference variables containing table names...?

[J L]

Could someone point me to an example of using variables in stored procedures for performing actions on multiple tables? I'm able to retrieve the table names from the information_schema with a cursor and step through them no problem, so my issue is mainly in the syntax to dereference a varible within the procedure to get the correct sql statement corresponding to each table. As illustrated here, I can perform the task in a rudimentary fashion with a prepared statement, but it seems crude and surely will get ugly when the actions I want to perform get more complex. Any help is appreciated. Thanks, JL

CREATE PROCEDURE add_test_1()
BEGIN
DECLARE done INT DEFAULT 0;
DECLARE a CHAR(50);
DECLARE cur1 CURSOR FOR SELECT table_name from information_schema.tables where table_schema = "rvdb_test";
DECLARE CONTINUE HANDLER FOR SQLSTATE '02000' SET done = 1;

OPEN cur1;

REPEAT
FETCH cur1 INTO a;
SET @sql_statement =concat('alter table ',a,' add column test_1 int');
PREPARE test_statement from @sql_statement;
EXECUTE test_statement;
UNTIL done END REPEAT;

CLOSE cur1;
END