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Oracle PL/SQL Language Pocket Reference
book

Oracle PL/SQL Language Pocket Reference

by Bill Pribyl, Steven Feuerstein, Chip Dawes
April 1999
Intermediate to advanced content levelIntermediate to advanced
99 pages
2h 4m
English
O'Reilly Media, Inc.
Content preview from Oracle PL/SQL Language Pocket Reference

Variables and Program Data

PL/SQL programs are normally used to manipulate database information. You commonly do this by declaring variables and data structures in your programs, and then working with that PL/SQL-specific data.

A variable is a named instantiation of a data structure declared in a PL/SQL block (either locally or in a package). Unless you declare a variable as a CONSTANT, its value can be changed at any time in your program.

The following table describes several types of program data.

Type

Description

Scalar

Variables made up of a single value, such as a number, date, or Boolean.

Composite

Variables made up of multiple values, such as a record or collection.

Reference

Pointers to values.

LOB

Variables containing Large OBject (LOB) locators.

Scalar Datatypes

Scalar datatypes divide into four families: number, character, date-time, and Boolean.

Numeric datatypes

Numeric datatypes are further divided into decimal, binary integer, and PLS_INTEGER storage types.

Decimal numeric datatypes store fixed and floating-point numbers of just about any size. They include NUMBER, DEC, DECIMAL, NUMERIC, FLOAT, REAL, and DOUBLE PRECISION. The maximum precision of a variable with type NUMBER is 38 digits, which yields a range of values from 1.0E-129 through 9.999E125. This range of numbers would include the mass of an electron over the mass of the universe or the size of the universe in angstroms.

Variables of type NUMBER can be declared with precision and scale, as follows: ...

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Publisher Resources

ISBN: 1565924576Catalog PageErrata