1. Object-Relational Features
Department of Computer and Information Science, School of Science, IUPUI
Object-Relational Features
Dale Roberts, Lecturer
Computer Science, IUPUI

2. Object-Relational Databases
Types, Object Views, Methods
Nested Tables and Varying Arrays
Large Objects
Advanced OO Concepts 2

3. Types
Abstract datatypes groups related columns/data . create type ADDRESS_TY as object ( Street VARCHAR2(50), City VARCHAR2(25), State CHAR(2), Zip NUMBER);
Abstract datatypes can be nested .
security – must have EXECUTE privilege to use a type.
set describe depth – see attributes within an object. 3

4. Types: indexing, selecting, manipulating
Create type PERSON_TY ( Name VARCHAR2(25), Address ADDRESS_TY); Create table CUSTOMER ( Cust_Id NUMBER, Person PERSON_TY );
Select: select c.Name, c.Person.Address.City from CUSTOMER c where c.Person.Address.City like ‘I%’;
Indexing: create index IDX_CUST on CUSTOMER (Person.Address.City);
Insert: insert into CUSTOMER values (1, PERSON_TY(‘xxxx’, ADDRESS_TY(‘aaaa’, ‘bbb’, ccc’))); 4

5. Object Views Inserting into original table:
create table CUSTOMER (Cust_id NUMBER PRIMARY KEY, Name VARCHAR2(25), Street VARCHAR2(50), City VARCHAR2(25), State CHAR(2), Zip NUMBER);
create type ADDRESS_TY as object ( Street VARCHAR2(50), City VARCHAR2(25), State CHAR(2), Zip NUMBER); create type PERSON_TY ( Name VARCHAR2(25), Address ADDRESS_TY); create or replace view CUSTOMER_OV (Cust_id, person) as select Cust_id, PERSON_TY (Name, ADDRESS_TY(street, city, state, zip)) from CUSTOMER;
Inserting into original table:
insert into CUSTOMER values ( 123, ‘name’, ‘Street’, ‘City’, ‘ST’, );
Inserting into object view: insert into CUSTOMER_OV values ( 123, PERSON_TY(‘name’, ADDRESS_TY( ‘Street’, ‘City’, ‘ST’, ))); 5

6. INSTEAD OF Triggers
Views usually cannot use standard table-based PL/SQL Triggers, but they can use INSTEAD OF triggers. Works with either normal views or object views.
create trigger AUTHOR_PUBLISHER_UPDATE instead of UPDATE on AUTHOR_PUBLISHER for each row begin … end; 6

7. Methods Methods allow types to have “behavior”.
Methods are declared inside CREATE TYPE, they are defined with CREATE TYPE BODY.
create type PERSON_TY ( Name VARCHAR2(25), Address ADDRESS_TY, Birthday DATE, member function AGE (BirthDate IN DATE) return NUMBER); create or replace type body PERSON_TY as member function AGE (Birthdate DATE) return NUMBER is begin return ROUND(sysdate – Birthdate); end;
end; 7

8. Collections: Varying Arrays
Definition – a varying array is a set of objects, each of same type, seen as a column within a table. The size is limited when created.
Creating a Varying Array
Create type TOOL_TY as object (…);
Create type TOOLS_VA as varray(5) of VARCHAR2(25);
Create table TOOL_BORROWER (…, Tools TOOLS_VA);
Describing – requires queries on data dictionary to show varray structure.
Selecting – requires PL/SQL, see p
Inserting – insert into TOOL_BORROWER values (‘name’, TOOLS_VA(‘tool1’, ‘tool2’, ‘tool3’));
Storage – stored in-line, ie. within table data segment. 8

9. Collections: Nested Tables
Definition – a nested table is a table within a table. Their size is not limited as with varying arrays.
Creating a Nested Table
Create type TOOL_TY as object (…);
Create type TOOLS_NT as table of TOOL_TY;
Create table TOOL_BORROWER (…, nested table Tools TOOLS_NT);
Describing – set describe depth will allow the describe command to show nested tables.
Selecting – requires the TABLE() function (previous to 9i use THE() function). This “flatten’s” or de-normalizes the nested table’s relationship Select BreederName, N.Name, N.birthdate from BREEDER, TABLE(breeder.Animals) N
Inserting – insert into TABLE(select Animals from BREEDER where Breedername = ‘x’) values (ANIMAL_TY (‘x’,’y’,’z’));
Storage – Nested tables can be stored in or out-of-line. Recommend they be stored out-of-line with a storage clause to improves query performance. 9

10. Large Object Datatypes
BLOB – binary field up to 4Gb.
CLOB – character field up to 4Gb.
NCLOB – CLOB that supports MBCS (multi-byte character set).
BFILE – read-only binary data stored in a file outside of the database. 10

11. LOB Storage, Initialization
LOB Storage – BLOB and (N)CLOB columns are stored out-of-line. They require the CREATE TABLE statement include a LOB STORAGE clause to tell where the LOB segment is stored. BFILE columns are by their nature stored out-of-line.
LOBs use at least 1 entire data block per row in the LOB segment. Normal DATA segments store multiple rows per block (up to 100% -PCTFREE).
Initializing LOBs – use EMPTY_BLOB or EMPTY_CLOB instead of NULL to initialize a LOB.
NULL will create a LOB with no data.
EMPTY_BLOB/CLOB will create an empty “LOB locater” (pointer) without allocating the empty block. 11

12. DBMS_LOB LOB data is manipulated with the DBMS_LOB package.
For all LOBs:
APPEND
COMPARE
COPY
ERASE
GETCHUNKSIZE
GETLENGTH
INSTR
ISOPEN
OPEN
READ
SUBSTR
TRIM
WRITE
WRITEAPPEND
BFILE specific functions:
FILEOPEN
FILECLOSE
FILECLOSEALL
FILEEXISTS
FILEGETNAME
FILEISOPEN
LOADFROM FILE
Temporary LOB functions:
CREATETEMPORARY
FREETEMPORARY
ISTEMPORARY 12

13. BFILE Read-only binary data stored in a file outside of the database.
CREATE DIRECTORY PROPOSAL_DIR AS ‘C:\My Documents’;
Insert into thetable ( col1, bfilecol ) values ( ‘value1’, BFILENAME(‘proposal_dir’, ‘myfile.doc’);
Deleting LOBs – internal LOBs when deleted have both their data and LOB locater deleted. Deleting a BFILE only deletes the locater, the file is read only and thus not changed. 13

14. row objects vs. column objects14

15. REF, DEREF, VALUE
REF
DEREF
VALUE 15

16. Acknowledgements Loney, Oracle Database 10g The Complete Reference
1/18/2019