Oracle Essentials, 5th Edition

Chapter 14. Oracle Extended Datatypes

You might find that your data is diverse and extends beyond types of data typically found in most relational databases. Specialty databases, such as object databases and XML databases, emerged at various times to address these needs. As noted in Chapter 10, Hadoop and the Hadoop Distributed File System (HDFS) are popular as a data store and engine for unstructured and semi-structured data today.

Where most of the data to be processed is structured, it can make sense to do the processing of all of the data in the relational database. Earlier in Chapter 4, we covered the rich set of native datatypes in the Oracle database with a focus on what is required in traditional relational databases. Oracle also provides datatypes that are specifically designed to provide optimal storage, performance, and flexibility for other types of data—the focus of this chapter.

For example, object datatypes in Oracle can be used to represent purchase orders, claims forms, shipping forms, and so on in a single unified entity. The XML datatype and support for features such as XMLSchema, an XML DB repository (enabling URL-based access to XML documents stored in Oracle), and SQL/XML (for generating XML documents from SQL) extend Oracle’s ability to blend the relational database with characteristics of an XML database. Location-oriented data may best be represented using spatial coordinates stored in the Oracle database. Documents, images, video clips, and audio clips have ...