COLLECTIONS

PL/SQL

Satyam 2009

Collection
A collection is a group of similar items VARYING Arrays ( VARRAY) Nested Tables Either of these collection types can be treated as object type. The Collection can consist of Built in data types User Defined data types

Satyam 2009

What is VARRAY

VARRAY is basically an array. An array is a collection of elements that are of same type From 8.0, Oracle supports VARRAYS ( Varying length arrays). A varying length contains zero or more elements.I.e the array can vary between 0 and maximum size mentioned at the time of creating VARRAY.

Satyam 2009

What is VARRAY
We can define a column of a relational table as a VARRAY. From Oracle 8.0, Oracle allows arrays to be stored in tables. We can create VARRAY using CREATE TYPE SQL Command VARRAY is stored in-line. That is the data of a column of VARRAY type is stored along with the remaining data of the row.

Satyam 2009

How to Define VARRAY

Syntax for creating VARRAY is CREATE TYPE <array-name> AS VARRAY (<limit>) OF <data-type> Array-name Name of VARRAY Limit Max no of elements that an Array contains Data-type Data type of each element of the array

Satyam 2009

Example

The following command create a varying array which can contain upto 20 numbers where each number can contain upto 10 digits. Create type phones_array as varray(20) of number(10); create table customer(cno number(3),cname varchar2(20),phone phones_array); insert into customer values ( 100,'kris',phones_array(55274020, 9885366959))

Satyam 2009

Example

declare ph phones_array; begin select phone into ph from customer where cno=101; for i in 1 .. ph.count loop dbms_output.put_line(ph(i)); end loop; end; /

Satyam 2009

Limitations
1) The data type of varray can not be VARRAY data type Other Object Type 2) We can not specify any constraints such as NOT NULL, PRIMARY KEY on VARRAY 3) We can not create index on VARRAY data type column

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DML statements on VARRAY

update customer set phone = phones_array(27676786,null);

Satyam 2009

EXAMPLE

declare ph phones_array; X NUMBER; begin select phone into ph from customer WHERE CNO=101; X := PH(PH.PRIOR(PH.LAST)); DBMS_OUTPUT.PUT_LINE(X); end;

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EXAMPLE

declare ph phones_array; X NUMBER; begin select phone into ph from customer WHERE CNO=101; X := PH(PH.NEXT(PH.FIRST)); DBMS_OUTPUT.PUT_LINE(X); end;

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EXAMPLE

declare ph phones_array; X NUMBER; begin select phone into ph from customer WHERE CNO=101; X := PH(PH.PRIOR(PH.NEXT(PH.FIRST))); DBMS_OUTPUT.PUT_LINE(X); end;

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Nested Tables
It is useful for data models requiring referential integrity and is suitable for master detail and one to many relationship. A Nested Table is a database table which stores data in it, that cannot be accessed directly.

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Example

Student_No

Student_Name

Books_Issued

01
02

Rajeev
Ajay

Book_No 2111 2211 2323 3022

Book_title
ORACLE 8 UNLEASHED

Author LONELY MC JOHN RAMKUMAR KEVIN

INTRO. TO ORA 8 INTRO. TO VB 6.0 PL/SQL PROG

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Nested Table
A Nested Table can be included in a table definition as one of the columns. That is why they are known as Nested Tables. Nested Tables can be manipulated directly using SQL.

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Creating nested table

SQL> CREATE TYPE BOOKS_TYPE AS OBJECT ( BOOK_NO NUMBER(4), BOOK_TITLE VARCHAR2(20), AUTHOR VARCHAR2(20) ); SQL> CREATE TYPE BOOKS AS TABLE OF BOOKS_TYPE;

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CREATING NESTED TABLES

Oracle will implicitly provide a default constructor to create a Nested Table instance with values or an empty Nested Table instance. An empty Nested Table is NOT NULL. The Table Type is stored in the data dictionary.

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CREATING NESTED TABLE

SQL> CREATE TABLE STUDENT( STUDENT_NO NUMBER(4) NOT NULL, STUDENT_NAME VARCHAR2(25), BOOKS_ISSUED BOOKS) NESTED TABLE BOOKS_ISSUED STORE AS BOOK_TABLE;

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SQL STATEMENTS ON NESTED TABLE

SQL> INSERT INTO STUDENT VALUES(1001,AMIT KUMAR, BOOKS( BOOKS_TYPE( 2111,ORACLE 8 , LONEY), BOOKS_TYPE(1022,PL/SQL PROG,KEVIN)));

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BOOKS is the constructor method for table type BOOKS and BOOK_TYPE is the constructor method for object type BOOK_TYPE .

In the above example , two rows have been inserted in the Nested Table. A Pl/SQL program to insert rows into Nested Table DECLARE BOOK_VAR BOOKS;

BEGIN
BOOK_VAR := BOOKS(BOOKS_TYPE(3111,ORACLE ARCHITECTURE, LONEY)); INSERT INTO STUDENT VALUES(1021, ASHOK MARTIN, BOOK_VAR);

END;

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UPDATION

DECLARE BOOK_VAR BOOKS; BEGIN BOOK_VAR := BOOKS(BOOK_TYPE(3111, ORACLE ARCHITECTURE, LONEY), BOOKS_TYPE(3112, ORACLE IN 21 DAYS, MOHAN)); UPDATE STUDENT SET BOOKS_ISSUED = BOOK_VAR WHERE STUDENT_NO = 1021; END;

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DELETE
SQL> DELETE FROM STUDENT WHERE STUDENT_NO =1021;

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example
declare mbook student.books_issued%type; mname student.student_name%type; cursor c1(sno number) is select student_name,books_issued from student where student_no = sno; begin open c1(1001); loop fetch c1 into mname,mbook; exit when c1%notfound; dbms_output.put_line(' books issued to ' || mname); for i in 1 .. mbook.count loop dbms_output.put_line(' '||mbook(i).book_title); end loop; end loop; close c1; end; /

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Updating nested table

THE operator allows nested tables to be manipulated using DML when it is stored in a table. THE table takes sub query as argument and returns the nested table to be used in DML. The sub query must return single nested columns.

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example
update the(select books_issued from student where student_no = 1001) set book_title = 'oracle unleashed' where book_no = 2111; Insert into the(select books_issued from student where student_no = 1001) values(books_type(4111,'visual basic','ken fol'))

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Example
delete from the(select books_issued from student where student_no = 1001) where book_no = 2111;

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