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…Principal Features…
Oracle Objects
- Similar to Java, C++ classes
- User-defined object types
- Attributes (data)
- Methods (related PL/SQL or Java code)
- Collection support
- VARRAYS, Associative Arrays, Nested Tables
- Object Views
- Object model on top of existing relational tables
Notes:
In the late 1990’s, Oracle released Oracle8 (8.0). The highly visible and aggressively marketed feature in this release was support for objects. Oracle now had a Object-Relational Database (ORDBMS) to offer the marketplace.
Oracle objects are roughly similar to classes in Java and C++ languages. An Oracle object contains attributes (data) and methods (program code tied to the object that acts upon the object). An example of a method would be a constructor method that adds a new instance of the object.
Oracle also supports three types of collections: associative arrays, varrays and nested tables.
Using Oracle objects is not an all or nothing proposition. You can choose to build an object model on top of an existing relational model. Object views is designed for this purpose; I.e creating a view of an Object model on top of an existing relational table.
However, support for objects is limited, though better with the release of Oracle9i.