oracle ASSOCIATIVE ARRAYS

Oracle ASSOCIATIVE ARRAYS

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Starting in Oracle 9i PL/SQL tables are called ASSOCIATIVE ARRAYS. As associative arrays are PL/SQL tables, they can not exist in the database. ASSOCIATIVE ARRAYS can only exist in PL/SQL memory structures.

SET SERVEROUTPUT ON
DECLARE
TYPE country_type IS RECORD (
iso_code VARCHAR2(5),
name VARCHAR2(50)
);

TYPE country_tab IS TABLE OF country_type
INDEX BY BINARY_INTEGER;


t_country country_tab;
BEGIN


-- Populate lookup
t_country(1).iso_code := 'UK';
t_country(1).name := 'United Kingdom';
t_country(2).iso_code := 'US';
t_country(2).name := 'United States of America';
t_country(3).iso_code := 'FR';
t_country(3).name := 'France';
t_country(4).iso_code := 'DE';
t_country(4).name := 'Germany';

-- Find country name for ISO code "DE"
<< lookup >>
FOR i IN 1 .. 4 LOOP
IF t_country(i).iso_code = 'DE' THEN
DBMS_OUTPUT.PUT_LINE('ISO code "DE" = ' || t_country(i).name);
EXIT lookup;
END IF;
END LOOP;


END;
/