Associative arrays
Associative arrays in Oracle are similar to conventional lists in other programming languages. An associative array is an unbounded array of cells and always defined in the declarative section of a PL/SQL program. While a cell is identified by an index of number or string type, it can hold a value of a scalar data type or user-defined composite type.
The syntax to declare an associative array in a PL/SQL block is as follows:
TYPE [COLL NAME] IS TABLE OF [ELEMENT DATA TYPE] NOT NULL INDEX BY [INDEX DATA TYPE]
In the syntax, the [INDEX DATA TYPE] signifies the data type of an array subscript. It can be BINARY_INTEGER, PLS_INTEGER, POSITIVE, NATURAL, SIGNTYPE, or VARCHAR2. The data types that are not supported as index types are RAW, NUMBER, LONG-RAW, ROWID, and CHAR.
The [ELEMENT DATA TYPE] can be one of the following:
- PL/SQL scalar data type:
NUMBER(along with its subtypes),VARCHAR2(and its subtypes),DATE,BLOB,CLOB, orBOOLEAN - Inferred data: The data type inherited from...
