Data types in PL/SQL
Data types in PL/SQL
Topic Introduction:
PL/SQL supports a variety of data types to store and manipulate different kinds of data. The data types in PL/SQL can be broadly categorized into the following groups:
Scalar Data Types:
- NUMBER: Numeric data type used for integers and floating-point numbers.
- VARCHAR2/CHAR: Variable-length and fixed-length character strings, respectively.
- DATE: Represents date and time values.
- BOOLEAN: Represents TRUE or FALSE values.
Composite Data Types:
- RECORD: A user-defined composite data type that can hold multiple values of different data types as fields.
- TABLE: A collection type that can store multiple elements indexed by integers.
Reference Data Types:
- REF CURSOR: A cursor data type that holds a query result and can be used to process and manipulate the data.
LOB Data Types:
- CLOB: Character Large Object, used to store large character data.
- BLOB: Binary Large Object, used to store binary data like images or documents.
- NCLOB: National Character Large Object, used to store large Unicode character data.
PL/SQL Specific Data Types:
- BINARY_INTEGER: A subtype of NUMBER used for small integers for efficiency.
- PLS_INTEGER: Similar to BINARY_INTEGER but is more efficient for certain arithmetic operations.
- BOOLEAN: Represents TRUE or FALSE values.
- VARCHAR2, NUMBER, DATE, and others can also be used as PL/SQL-specific data types.
Object Types:
- OBJECT: User-defined data types representing real-world entities as objects.
Collection Types:
- VARRAY (Variable Size Arrays): Arrays with a fixed maximum size that can be changed at runtime.
- Nested Table: Dynamic arrays that can grow or shrink at runtime.
- Associative Array (also known as PL/SQL table): Unbounded arrays indexed by key-value pairs.
These data types enable PL/SQL to handle a wide range of data and provide the flexibility and performance required for various programming tasks in Oracle databases.
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