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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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