Related Entries

Useful SQL*Plus headers
Dino eats frog
Oracle with Active Record
When is he free?
Gentle dive into analytic functions

« PHP & Oracle performance
» Exuberant ctags and Vim

Multi-level collections

Latest in a series of articles about Oracle 9i's new features.

O'ReillyNet: Part 6 of Oracle 9i features.

New to Oracle 9i, you can now nest collections within collections, also referred to as support for "multi-level collections." A collection is a data structure (actually, three different, but similar data structures: index-by tables, nested tables, and varying arrays) that acts like a list or array. Collections are, in fact, the closest you can get to traditional arrays in the PL/SQL language, though there are a number of differences. Developers use collections to manage lists of information in their programs—or even within columns in a database table.

A good feature. Might be useful in implementing complex business logic when you choose to enhance security using stored procedures.

//-->