PL/SQL - Data Types

There SCALAR, LOB, Composite and Reference data types available in PL/SQL.

Category	Description
Scalar	Single values with no internal components, such as a NUMBER, DATE, or BOOLEAN.
Large Object (LOB)	Pointers to large objects that are stored separately from other data items, such as text, graphic images, video clips, and sound waveforms.
Composite	Data items that have internal components that can be accessed individually. For example, collections and records.
Reference	Pointers to other data items.

Scalar Data Types

Numeric
Character
Boolean
Datetime

Numeric Data Types

PLS_INTEGER

BINARY_INTEGER

BINARY_FLOAT

BINARY_DOUBLE

NUMBER(prec, scale)

DEC(prec, scale)

DECIMAL(prec, scale)

NUMERIC(pre, secale)

DOUBLE PRECISION

FLOAT

INT

INTEGER

SMALLINT

REAL

DECLARE
   n1 INTEGER;
   n2 REAL;
   n3 DOUBLE PRECISION;
BEGIN
   null;
END;
/

Character Data Types

CHAR

VARCHAR2

RAW

NCHAR

NVARCHAR2

LONG

LONG RAW

ROWID

UROWID

Boolean Data Types

The logical values are the Boolean values TRUE and FALSE.

Datetime

YEAR

MONTH

DAY

HOUR

MINUTE

SECOND

TIMEZONE_HOUR

TIMEZONE_MINUTE

TIMEZONE_REGION

TIMEZONE_ABBR

LOB Data Types

Large object (LOB) data types refer to large data items like text, graphic images, video clips and etc .. 

BFILE

Used to store large binary objects in operating system files outside the database.

BLOB

Used to store large binary objects in the database.

CLOB

Used to store large blocks of character data in the database.

NCLOB

Used to store large blocks of NCHAR data in the database.

User-Defined Subtypes

A sub type is a subset of another data type, which is called its base type.

SUBTYPE CHARACTER IS CHAR;
SUBTYPE INTEGER IS NUMBER(38,0);

You can define and use your own subtypes.

DECLARE
   SUBTYPE s_name IS char(20);
   SUBTYPE s_message IS varchar2(100);
   salutation s_name;
   greetings s_message;
BEGIN
   salutation := 'Mr. Hareesh ';
   greetings := 'This website is for learning Oracle';
   dbms_output.put_line('Hello ' || salutation || greetings);
END;
/

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