Associative Array
CREATE [OR REPLACE] TYPEtype_nameIS TABLE OFelement_type[NOT NULL] INDEX BY BINARY_INTEGER| PLS_INTEGER | VARCHAR2(n);
A singly-dimensioned, unbounded, sparse collection of homogeneous elements available only in PL/SQL, not in the database. Associative arrays can be indexed by a BINARY_INTEGER, a PLS_INTEGER, or a VARCHAR2.
Keywords
- type_name
Any valid identifier that will be used later to declare the collection.
- element_type
Type of the collection’s elements. All elements are of a single type, which may be most scalar datatypes, an object type, or a REF object type. If the elements are objects, the object type itself cannot have an attribute that is a collection. Explicitly disallowed collection datatypes are BOOLEAN, NCHAR, NCLOB, NVARCHAR2, REF CURSOR, TABLE, and VARRAY.
- max_elements
Maximum number of elements for this associative array.
- NOT NULL
Indicates that a collection of this type cannot have any NULL elements. However, the collection can be atomically NULL (uninitialized).
- BINARY_INTEGER | PLS_INTEGER | VARCHAR(n)
An associative array can be indexed by a BINARY_INTEGER, a PLS_INTEGER, or a VARCHAR value.