Oracle® Database JDBC Developer's Guide and Reference 10g Release 2 (10.2) Part Number B14355-02 |
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This chapter describes Oracle extensions to standard Java Database Connectivity (JDBC) that let you access and manipulate Oracle collections, which map to Java arrays, and their data. The following topics are discussed:
An Oracle collection, either a variable array (VARRAY) or a nested table in the database, maps to an array in Java. JDBC 2.0 arrays are used to materialize Oracle collections in Java. The terms collection and array are sometimes used interchangeably. However, collection is more appropriate on the database side and array is more appropriate on the JDBC application side.
Oracle supports only named collections, where you specify a SQL type name to describe a type of collection. JDBC enables you to use arrays as any of the following:
Columns in a SELECT
clause
IN
or OUT
bind variables
Attributes in an Oracle object
Elements of other arrays
This section covers the following topics:
In your application, you have the choice of materializing a collection as an instance of the oracle.sql.ARRAY
class, which is weakly typed, or materializing it as an instance of a custom Java class that you have created in advance, which is strongly typed. Custom Java classes used for collections are referred to as custom collection classes. A custom collection class must implement the Oracle oracle.sql.ORAData
interface. In addition, the custom class or a companion class must implement oracle.sql.ORADataFactory
. The standard java.sql.SQLData
interface is for mapping SQL object types only.
The oracle.sql.ARRAY
class implements the standard java.sql.Array
interface.
The ARRAY
class includes functionality to retrieve the array as a whole, retrieve a subset of the array elements, and retrieve the SQL base type name of the array elements. However, you cannot write to the array, because there are no setter methods.
Custom collection classes, as with the ARRAY
class, enable you to retrieve all or part of the array and get the SQL base type name. They also have the advantage of being strongly typed, which can help you find coding errors during compilation that might not otherwise be discovered until run time.
Furthermore, custom collection classes produced by JPublisher offer the feature of being writable, with individually accessible elements.
Note:
There is no difference in the code between accessing VARRAYs and accessing nested tables.ARRAY
class methods can determine if they are being applied to a VARRAY or nested table, and respond by taking the appropriate actions.See Also:
For more information about custom collection classes, see "Custom Collection Classes with JPublisher".Because Oracle supports only named collections, you must declare a particular VARRAY
type name or nested table type name. VARRAY and nested table are not types themselves, but categories of types.
A SQL type name is assigned to a collection when you create it using the SQL CREATE TYPE
statement:
CREATE TYPE <sql_type_name> AS <datatype>;
A VARRAY is an array of varying size. It has an ordered set of data elements, and all the elements are of the same data type. Each element has an index, which is a number corresponding to the position of the element in the VARRAY. The number of elements in a VARRAY is the size of the VARRAY. You must specify a maximum size when you declare the VARRAY
type. For example:
CREATE TYPE myNumType AS VARRAY(10) OF NUMBER;
This statement defines myNumType
as a SQL type name that describes a VARRAY of NUMBER
values that can contain no more than 10 elements.
A nested table is an unordered set of data elements, all of the same data type. The database stores a nested table in a separate table which has a single column, and the type of that column is a built-in type or an object type. If the table is an object type, then it can also be viewed as a multi-column table, with a column for each attribute of the object type. You can create a nested table as follows:
CREATE TYPE myNumList AS TABLE OF integer;
This statement identifies myNumList
as a SQL type name that defines the table type used for the nested tables of the type INTEGER
.
The most common way to create a new multilevel collection type in JDBC is to pass the SQL CREATE TYPE
statement to the execute
method of the java.sql.Statement
class. The following code creates a one-level nested table, first_level
, and a two- levels nested table, second_level
:
Connection conn = .... // make a database // connection Statement stmt = conn.createStatement(); // open a database // cursor stmt.execute("CREATE TYPE first_level AS TABLE OF NUMBER"); // create a nested // table of number stmt.execute("CREATE second_level AS TABLE OF first_level"); // create a // two-levels nested table ... // other operations here stmt.close(); // release the // resource conn.close(); // close the // database connection
Once the multilevel collection types have been created, they can be used as both columns of a base table as well as attributes of a object type.
Note:
Multilevel collection types are available only for Oracle9i and later.You can obtain collection data in an array instance through a result set or callable statement and pass it back as a bind variable in a prepared statement or callable statement.
The oracle.sql.ARRAY
class, which implements the standard java.sql.Array
interface, provides the necessary functionality to access and update the data of an Oracle collection.
This section covers the following topics:
Use the following result set, callable statement, and prepared statement methods to retrieve and pass collections as Java arrays.
Result Set and Callable Statement Getter Methods
The OracleResultSet
and OracleCallableStatement
classes support getARRAY
and getArray
methods to retrieve ARRAY
objects as output parameters, either as oracle.sql.ARRAY
instances or java.sql.Array
instances. You can also use the getObject
method. These methods take as input a String
column name or int
column index.
Note:
The Oracle JDBC drivers cache array and structure descriptors. This provides enormous performance benefits; however, it means that if you change the underlying type definition of an array type in the database, the cached descriptor for that array type will become stale and your application will receive aSQLException
.Prepared and Callable Statement Setter Methods
The OraclePreparedStatement
and OracleCallableStatement
classes support setARRAY
and setArray
methods to take updated ARRAY
objects as bind variables and pass them to the database. You can also use the setObject
method. These methods take as input a String
parameter name or int
parameter index as well as an oracle.sql.ARRAY
instance or a java.sql.Array
instance.
The section introduces ARRAY
descriptors and lists methods of the ARRAY
class to provide an overview of its functionality.
ARRAY Descriptors
Creating and using an ARRAY
object requires the existence of a descriptor, that is, an instance of the oracle.sql.ArrayDescriptor
class, to exist for the SQL type of the collection being materialized in the array. You need only one ArrayDescriptor
object for any number of ARRAY
objects that correspond to the same SQL type.
See Also:
"Creating ARRAY Objects and Descriptors"ARRAY Class Methods
The oracle.sql.ARRAY
class includes the following methods:
Returns the ArrayDescriptor
object that describes the array type.
Retrieves the contents of the array in default JDBC types. If it retrieves an array of objects, then getArray
uses the default type map of the database connection object to determine the types.
Is identical to getArray
, but retrieves the elements in oracle.sql.*
format.
Returns the SQL type code for the array elements.
Returns the SQL type name of the elements of this array.
Returns the fully qualified SQL type name of the array as a whole. This method is an Oracle extension.
Materializes the array elements as a result set.
Returns the connection instance associated with this array.
Returns the number of elements in the array.
Note:
As an example of the difference betweengetBaseTypeName
and getSQLTypeName
, if you define ARRAY_OF_PERSON
as the array type for an array of PERSON
objects in the SCOTT
schema, then getBaseTypeName
would return SCOTT.PERSON
and getSQLTypeName
would return SCOTT.ARRAY_OF_PERSON
.This section discusses the following topics:
The oracle.sql.ARRAY
class contains methods that return array elements as Java primitive types. These methods allow you to access collection elements more efficiently than accessing them as Datum
instances and then converting each Datum
instance to its Java primitive value.
Note:
These specialized methods of theoracle.sql.ARRAY
class are restricted to numeric collections.Here are the methods:
public int[] getIntArray() throws SQLException
public int[] getIntArray(long index, int count) throws SQLException
public long[] getLongArray() throws SQLException
public long[] getLongArray(long index, int count) throws SQLException
public float[] getFloatArray() throws SQLException
public float[] getFloatArray(long index, int count) throws SQLException
public double[] getDoubleArray() throws SQLException
public double[] getDoubleArray(long index, int count) throws SQLException
public short[] getShortArray() throws SQLException
public short[] getShortArray(long index, int count) throws SQLException
Each method using the first signature returns collection elements as an XXX
[]
, where XXX
is a Java primitive type. Each method using the second signature returns a slice of the collection containing the number of elements specified by count
, starting at the index
location.
The Oracle JDBC driver provides public methods to enable and disable buffering of ARRAY
contents.
The following methods are included with the oracle.sql.ARRAY
class:
The setAutoBuffering
method enables or disables auto-buffering. The getAutoBuffering()
method returns the current auto-buffering mode. By default, auto-buffering is disabled.
It is advisable to enable auto-buffering in a JDBC application when the ARRAY
elements will be accessed more than once by the getAttributes
and getArray
methods, presuming the ARRAY
data is able to fit into the Java virtual machine (JVM) memory without overflow.
Important:
Buffering the converted elements may cause the JDBC application to consume a significant amount of memory.When you enable auto-buffering, the oracle.sql.ARRAY
object keeps a local copy of all the converted elements. This data is retained so that a second access of this information does not require going through the data format conversion process.
If an array is in auto-indexing mode, then the array object maintains an index table to hasten array element access.
The oracle.sql.ARRAY
class contains the following methods to support automatic array-indexing:
public synchronized void setAutoIndexing(boolean enable, int direction) throws SQLException
public synchronized void setAutoIndexing(boolean enable) throws SQLException
The setAutoIndexing
method sets the auto-indexing mode for the oracle.sql.ARRAY
object. The direction
parameter gives the array object a hint. Specify this parameter to help the JDBC driver determine the best indexing scheme. The following are the values you can specify for the direction
parameter:
The setAutoIndexing(boolean)
method signature sets the access direction as ARRAY.ACCESS_UNKNOWN
by default.
By default, auto-indexing is not enabled. For a JDBC application, enable auto-indexing for ARRAY
objects if random access of array elements may occur through the getArray
and getResultSet
methods.
This section discusses how to create array objects and how to retrieve and pass collections as array objects, including the following topics.
This section describes how to create ARRAY
objects and descriptors and lists useful methods of the ArrayDescriptor
class. This section covers the following topics:
Steps in Creating ArrayDescriptor and ARRAY Objects
This section describes how to construct an oracle.sql.ARRAY
object. To do this, you must:
Create an ArrayDescriptor
object for the array, if one does not already exist.
Use the ArrayDescriptor
object to construct the oracle.sql.ARRAY
object for the array you want to pass.
An ArrayDescriptor
is an object of the oracle.sql.ArrayDescriptor
class and describes the SQL type of an array. Only one array descriptor is necessary for any one SQL type. The driver caches ArrayDescriptor
objects to avoid re-creating them if the SQL type has already been encountered. You can reuse the same descriptor object to create multiple instances of an oracle.sql.ARRAY
object for the same array type.
Collections are strongly typed. Oracle supports only named collections, that is, a collection given a SQL type name. For example, you create a collection with the CREATE TYPE
statement, as follows:
CREATE TYPE num_varray AS varray(22) OF NUMBER(5,2);
num_varray
is the SQL type name for the collection type.
Note:
The name of the collection type is not the same as the type name of the elements. For example:CREATE TYPE person AS object (c1 NUMBER(5), c2 VARCHAR2(30)); CREATE TYPE array_of_persons AS varray(10) OF person;
In the preceding statements, the SQL name of the collection type is ARRAY_OF_PERSON
. The SQL name of the collection elements is PERSON
.
Before you can construct an Array
object, an ArrayDescriptor
must first exist for the given SQL type of the array. If an ArrayDescriptor
does not exist, then you must construct one by passing the SQL type name of the collection type and your
Connection
object, which JDBC uses to connect to the database to gather meta data, to the constructor.
ArrayDescriptor arraydesc = ArrayDescriptor.createDescriptor (sql_type_name, connection);
sql_type_name
is the type name of the array and connection
is your Connection
object.
Once you have your ArrayDescriptor
object for the SQL type of the array, you can construct the ARRAY
object. To do this, pass in the array descriptor, your connection object, and a Java object containing the individual elements you want the array to contain.
ARRAY array = new ARRAY(arraydesc, connection, elements);
arraydesc
is the array descriptor created previously, connection
is your connection object, and elements
is a Java array. The two possibilities for the contents of elements
are:
An array of Java primitives. For example, int[]
.
An array of Java objects, such as xxx
[]
, where xxx
is the name of a Java class. For example, Integer[]
.
Note:
ThesetARRAY
, setArray
, and setObject
methods of the OraclePreparedStatement
class take an object of the type oracle.sql.ARRAY
as an argument, not an array of objects.Creating Multilevel Collections
As with single-level collections, the JDBC application can create an oracle.sql.ARRAY
instance to represent a multilevel collection, and then send the instance to the database. The oracle.sql.ARRAY
constructor is defined as follows:
public ARRAY(ArrayDescriptor type, Connection conn, Object elements) throws SQLException
The first argument is an oracle.sql.ArrayDescriptor
object that describes the multilevel collection type. The second argument is the current database connection. And the third argument is a java.lang.Object
that holds the multilevel collection elements. This is the same constructor used to create single-level collections, but can create multilevel collections as well. The elements parameter can now be either a one dimension array or a nested Java array.
To create a single-level collection, the elements are a one dimensional Java array. To create a multilevel collection, the elements can be either an array of oracle.sql.ARRAY[]
elements or a nested Java array or the combinations.
The following code shows how to create collection types with a nested Java array:
Connection conn = ...; // make a JDBC connection // create the collection types Statement stmt = conn.createStatement (); stmt.execute ("CREATE TYPE varray1 AS VARRAY(10) OF NUMBER(12, 2)"); // one // layer stmt.execute ("CREATE TYPE varray2 AS VARRAY(10) OF varray1"); // two layers stmt.execute ("CREATE TYPE varray3 AS VARRAY(10) OF varray2"); // three layers stmt.execute ("CREATE TABLE tab2 (col1 index, col2 value)"); stmt.close (); // obtain a type descriptor of "SCOTT.VARRAY3" ArrayDescriptor desc = ArrayDescriptor.createDescriptor("SCOTT.VARRAY3", conn); // prepare the multi level collection elements as a nested Java array int[][][] elems = { {{1}, {1, 2}}, {{2}, {2, 3}}, {{3}, {3, 4}} }; // create the ARRAY by calling the constructor ARRAY array3 = new ARRAY (desc, conn, elems); // some operations ... // close the database connection conn.close();
In the preceding example, another implementation is to prepare the elems
as a Java array of oracle.sql.ARRAY[]
elements, and each oracle.sql.ARRAY[]
element represents a SCOTT.VARRAY3
.
Using ArrayDescriptor Methods
An ARRAY
descriptor can be referred to as a type object. It has information about the SQL name of the underlying collection, the type code of the array elements, and if it is an array of structured objects, then the SQL name of the elements. The descriptor also contains the information about converting to and from the given type. You need only one descriptor object for any one type, then you can use that descriptor to create as many arrays of that type as you want.
The ArrayDescriptor
class has the following methods for retrieving the type code and type name of an element:
Is a factory for ArrayDescriptor
instances. It looks up the name in the database and determine the characteristics of the array.
Returns the integer type code associated with this ARRAY
descriptor.
Returns a string with the type name associated with this array element if it is a STRUCT
or REF
.
Returns an integer indicating whether the array is a VARRAY or nested table. ArrayDescriptor.TYPE_VARRAY
and ArrayDescriptor.TYPE_NESTED_TABLE
are the possible return values.
Returns the maximum number of elements for this array type.
Returns the connection instance that was used in creating the ARRAY
descriptor.
Note:
In releases prior to Oracle9i Database, you could not use a collection within a collection. You could, however, use a structured object with a collection attribute, or a collection with structured object elements. In Oracle9i Database and later releases, you can use a collection within a collection.Serializable ARRAY Descriptors
When you create an ARRAY
object, you first must create an ArrayDescriptor
object. Create the ArrayDescriptor
object by calling the ArrayDescriptor.createDescriptor
method. The oracle.sql.ArrayDescriptor
class is serializable, meaning that you can write the state of an ArrayDescriptor
object to an output stream for later use. Re-create the ArrayDescriptor
object by reading its serialized state from an input stream. This is referred to as deserializing. With the ArrayDescriptor
object serialized, you do not need to call the createDescriptor
method, simply deserialize the ArrayDescriptor
object.
It is advisable to serialize an ArrayDescriptor
object when the object type is complex but not changed often.
If you create an ArrayDescriptor
object through deserialization, then you must provide the appropriate database connection instance for the ArrayDescriptor
object using the setConnection
method.
The following code furnishes the connection instance for an ArrayDescriptor
object:
public void setConnection (Connection conn) throws SQLException
Note:
The JDBC driver does not verify that the connection object from thesetConnection
method connects to the same database from which the type descriptor was initially derived.This section first discusses how to retrieve an ARRAY
instance as a whole from a result set, and then how to retrieve the elements from the ARRAY
instance. This section covers the following topics:
You can retrieve a SQL array from a result set by casting the result set to OracleResultSet
and using the getARRAY
method, which returns an oracle.sql.ARRAY
object. If you want to avoid casting the result set, then you can get the data with the standard getObject
method specified by the java.sql.ResultSet
interface and cast the output to oracle.sql.ARRAY
.
Once you have an ARRAY
object, you can retrieve the data using one of these three overloaded methods of the oracle.sql.ARRAY
class:
Oracle also provides methods that enable you to retrieve all the elements of an array, or a subset.
Note:
In case you are working with an array of structured objects, Oracle provides versions of these three methods that enable you to specify a type map so that you can choose how to map the objects to Java.getOracleArray
The getOracleArray
method is an Oracle-specific extension that is not specified in the standard Array
interface. The getOracleArray
method retrieves the element values of the array into a Datum[]
array. The elements are of the oracle.sql.*
data type corresponding to the SQL type of the data in the original array.
For an array of structured objects, this method will use oracle.sql.STRUCT
instances for the elements.
Oracle also provides a getOracleArray(
index
,
count
)
method
to get a subset of the array elements.
getResultSet
The getResultSet
method returns a result set that contains elements of the array designated by the ARRAY
object. The result set contains one row for each array element, with two columns in each row. The first column stores the index into the array for that element, and the second column stores the element value. In the case of VARRAYs, the index represents the position of the element in the array. In the case of nested tables, which are by definition unordered, the index reflects only the return order of the elements in the particular query.
Oracle recommends using getResultSet
when getting data from nested tables. Nested tables can have an unlimited number of elements. The ResultSet
object returned by the method initially points at the first row of data. You get the contents of the nested table by using the next
method and the appropriate get
XXX
method. In contrast, getArray
returns the entire contents of the nested table at one time.
The getResultSet
method uses the default type map of the connection to determine the mapping between the SQL type of the Oracle object and its corresponding Java data type. If you do not want to use the default type map of the connection, another version of the method, getResultSet(
map
)
, enables you to specify an alternate type map.
Oracle also provides the getResultSet(
index
,
count
)
and getResultSet(
index
,
count
,
map
)
methods to retrieve a subset of the array elements.
getArray
The getArray
method is a standard JDBC method that returns the array elements as a java.lang.Object
, which you can cast as appropriate. The elements are converted to the Java types corresponding to the SQL type of the data in the original array.
Oracle also provides a getArray(
index
,
count
)
method to retrieve a subset of the array elements.
If you use getOracleArray
to return the array elements, then the use by that method of oracle.sql.Datum
instances avoids the expense of data conversion from SQL to Java. The non-character data inside the instance of a Datum
class or any of its subclass remains in raw SQL format.
If you use getResultSet
to return an array of primitive data types, then the JDBC driver returns a ResultSet
object that contains, for each element, the index into the array for the element and the element value. For example:
ResultSet rset = intArray.getResultSet();
In this case, the result set contains one row for each array element, with two columns in each row. The first column stores the index into the array and the second column stores the element value.
If the elements of an array are of a SQL type that maps to a Java type, then getArray
returns an array of elements of this Java type. The return type of the getArray
method is java.lang.Object
. Therefore, the result must be cast before it can be used.
BigDecimal[] values = (BigDecimal[]) intArray.getArray();
Here intArray
is an oracle.sql.ARRAY
, corresponding to a VARRAY of type NUMBER
. The values
array contains an array of elements of type java.math.BigDecimal
, because the SQL NUMBER
data type maps to Java BigDecimal
, by default, according to the Oracle JDBC drivers.
Note:
UsingBigDecimal
is a resource-intensive operation in Java. Because Oracle JDBC maps numeric SQL data to BigDecimal
by default, using getArray
may impact performance, and is not recommended for numeric collections.By default, if you are working with an array whose elements are structured objects, and you use getArray
or getResultSet
, then the Oracle objects in the array will be mapped to their corresponding Java data types according to the default mapping. This is because these methods use the default type map of the connection to determine the mapping.
However, if you do not want default behavior, then you can use the getArray(
map
)
or getResultSet(
map
)
method to specify a type map that contains alternate mappings. If there are entries in the type map corresponding to the Oracle objects in the array, then each object in the array is mapped to the corresponding Java type specified in the type map. For example:
Object[] object = (Object[])objArray.getArray(map);
Where objArray
is an oracle.sql.ARRAY
object and map
is a java.util.Map
object.
If the type map does not contain an entry for a particular Oracle object, then the element is returned as an oracle.sql.STRUCT
object.
The getResultSet(
map
)
method behaves similarly to the getArray(
map
)
method.
See Also:
"Using a Type Map to Map Array Elements"If you do not want to retrieve the entire contents of an array, then you can use signatures of getArray
, getResultSet
, and getOracleArray
that let you retrieve a subset. To retrieve a subset of the array, pass in an index and a count to indicate where in the array you want to start and how many elements you want to retrieve. As previously described, you can specify a type map or use the default type map for your connection to convert to Java types. For example:
Object object = arr.getArray(index, count, map); Object object = arr.getArray(index, count);
Similar examples using getResultSet
are:
ResultSet rset = arr.getResultSet(index, count, map); ResultSet rset = arr.getResultSet(index, count);
A similar example using getOracleArray
is:
Datum[] arr = arr.getOracleArray(index, count);
Where arr
is an oracle.sql.ARRAY
object, index
is type long
, count
is type int
, and map
is a java.util.Map
object.
Note:
There is no performance advantage in retrieving a subset of an array, as opposed to the entire array.Use getOracleArray
to return an oracle.sql.Datum[]
array. The elements of the returned array will be of the oracle.sql.*
type that correspond to the SQL data type of the elements of the original array. For example:
Datum arraydata[] = arr.getOracleArray();
arr
is an oracle.sql.ARRAY
object.
The following example assumes that a connection object conn
and a statement object stmt
have already been created. In the example, an array with the SQL type name NUM_ARRAY
is created to store a VARRAY of NUMBER
data. The NUM_ARRAY
is in turn stored in a table VARRAY_TABLE
.
A query selects the contents of the VARRAY_TABLE
. The result set is cast to OracleResultSet
; getARRAY
is applied to it to retrieve the array data into my_array
, which is an oracle.sql.ARRAY
object.
Because my_array
is of type oracle.sql.ARRAY
, you can apply the methods getSQLTypeName
and getBaseType
to it to return the name of the SQL type of each element in the array and its integer code.
The program then prints the contents of the array. Because the contents of NUM_ARRAY
are of the SQL data type NUMBER
, the elements of my_array
are of the type, BigDecimal
. Before you can use the elements, they must first be cast to BigDecimal
. In the for
loop, the individual values of the array are cast to BigDecimal
and printed to standard output.
stmt.execute ("CREATE TYPE num_varray AS VARRAY(10) OF NUMBER(12, 2)"); stmt.execute ("CREATE TABLE varray_table (col1 num_varray)"); stmt.execute ("INSERT INTO varray_table VALUES (num_varray(100, 200))"); ResultSet rs = stmt.executeQuery("SELECT * FROM varray_table"); ARRAY my_array = ((OracleResultSet)rs).getARRAY(1); // return the SQL type names, integer codes, // and lengths of the columns System.out.println ("Array is of type " + array.getSQLTypeName()); System.out.println ("Array element is of type code " + array.getBaseType()); System.out.println ("Array is of length " + array.length()); // get Array elements BigDecimal[] values = (BigDecimal[]) my_array.getArray(); for (int i=0; i<values.length; i++) { BigDecimal out_value = (BigDecimal) values[i]; System.out.println(">> index " + i + " = " + out_value.intValue()); }
Note that if you use getResultSet
to obtain the array, then you must would first get the result set object, and then use the next
method to iterate through it. Notice the use of the parameter indexes in the getInt
method to retrieve the element index and the element value.
ResultSet rset = my_array.getResultSet(); while (rset.next()) { // The first column contains the element index and the // second column contains the element value System.out.println(">> index " + rset.getInt(1)+" = " + rset.getInt(2)); }
The oracle.sql.ARRAY
class provides three methods, which are overloaded, to access collection elements. The JDBC drivers extend these methods to support multilevel collections. These methods are:
getArray
method
getOracleArray
method
getResultSet
method
The getArray
method returns a Java array that holds the collection elements. The array element type is determined by the collection element type and the JDBC default conversion matrix.
For example, the getArray
method returns a java.math.BigDecimal
array for collection of SQL NUMBER
. The getOracleArray
method returns a Datum
array that holds the collection elements in Datum
format. For multilevel collections, the getArray
and getOracleArray
methods both return a Java array of oracle.sql.ARRAY
elements.
The getResultSet
method returns a ResultSet
object that wraps the multilevel collection elements. For multilevel collections, the JDBC applications use the getObject
, getARRAY
, or getArray
method of the ResultSet
class to access the collection elements as instances of oracle.sql.ARRAY
.
The following code shows how to use the getOracleArray
, getArray
, and getResultSet
methods:
Connection conn = ...; // make a JDBC connection Statement stmt = conn.createStatement (); ResultSet rset = stmt.executeQuery ("select col2 from tab2 where idx=1"); while (rset.next()) { ARRAY varray3 = (ARRAY) rset.getObject (1); Object varrayElems = varray3.getArray (1); // access array elements of "varray3" Datum[] varray3Elems = (Datum[]) varrayElems; for (int i=0; i<varray3Elems.length; i++) { ARRAY varray2 = (ARRAY) varray3Elems[i]; Datum[] varray2Elems = varray2.getOracleArray(); // access array elements of "varray2" for (int j=0; j<varray2Elems.length; j++) { ARRAY varray1 = (ARRAY) varray2Elems[j]; ResultSet varray1Elems = varray1.getResultSet(); // access array elements of "varray1" while (varray1Elems.next()) System.out.println ("idx="+varray1Elems.getInt(1)+" value="+varray1Elems.getInt(2)); } } } rset.close (); stmt.close (); conn.close ();
This section discusses how to pass arrays to prepared statement objects or callable statement objects.
Passing an Array to a Prepared Statement
Pass an array to a prepared statement as follows.
Note:
you can use arrays as eitherIN
or OUT
bind variables.Construct an ArrayDescriptor
object for the SQL type that the array will contain, as follows:
ArrayDescriptor descriptor = ArrayDescriptor.createDescriptor (sql_type_name, connection);
sql_type_name
is a Java string specifying the user-defined SQL type name of the array and connection
is your Connection
object.
Define the array that you want to pass to the prepared statement as an oracle.sql.ARRAY
object.
ARRAY array = new ARRAY(descriptor, connection, elements);
descriptor
is the ArrayDescriptor
object previously constructed and elements
is a java.lang.Object
containing a Java array of the elements.
Create a java.sql.PreparedStatement
object containing the SQL statement to be run.
Cast your prepared statement to OraclePreparedStatement
, and use setARRAY
to pass the array to the prepared statement.
(OraclePreparedStatement)stmt.setARRAY(parameterIndex, array);
parameterIndex
is the parameter index and array
is the oracle.sql.ARRAY
object you constructed previously.
Run the prepared statement.
Passing an Array to a Callable Statement
To retrieve a collection as an OUT
parameter in PL/SQL blocks, perform the following to register the bind type for your OUT
parameter.
Cast your callable statement to OracleCallableStatement
, as follows:
OracleCallableStatement ocs = (OracleCallableStatement)conn.prepareCall("{? = call func()}");
Register the OUT
parameter with the following form of the registerOutParameter
method:
ocs.registerOutParameter (int param_index, int sql_type, string sql_type_name);
param_index
is the parameter index, sql_type
is the SQL type code, and sql_type_name
is the name of the array type. In this case, the sql_type
is OracleTypes.ARRAY
.
Run the call, as follows:
ocs.execute();
Get the value, as follows:
oracle.sql.ARRAY array = ocs.getARRAY(1);
If your array contains Oracle objects, then you can use a type map to associate the objects in the array with the corresponding Java class. If you do not specify a type map, or if the type map does not contain an entry for a particular Oracle object, then each element is returned as an oracle.sql.STRUCT
object.
If you want the type map to determine the mapping between the Oracle objects in the array and their associated Java classes, then you must add an appropriate entry to the map.
The following example illustrates how you can use a type map to map the elements of an array to a custom Java object class. In this case, the array is a nested table. The example begins by defining an EMPLOYEE
object that has a name attribute and employee number attribute. EMPLOYEE_LIST
is a nested table type of EMPLOYEE
objects. Then an EMPLOYEE_TABLE
is created to store the names of departments within a corporation and the employees associated with each department. In the EMPLOYEE_TABLE
, the employees are stored in the form of EMPLOYEE_LIST
tables.
stmt.execute("CREATE TYPE EMPLOYEE AS OBJECT (EmpName VARCHAR2(50),EmpNo INTEGER))"); stmt.execute("CREATE TYPE EMPLOYEE_LIST AS TABLE OF EMPLOYEE"); stmt.execute("CREATE TABLE EMPLOYEE_TABLE (DeptName VARCHAR2(20), Employees EMPLOYEE_LIST) NESTED TABLE Employees STORE AS ntable1"); stmt.execute("INSERT INTO EMPLOYEE_TABLE VALUES ("SALES", EMPLOYEE_LIST (EMPLOYEE('Susan Smith', 123), EMPLOYEE('Scott Tiger', 124)))");
If you want to retrieve all the employees belonging to the SALES
department into an array of instances of the custom object class EmployeeObj
, then you must add an entry to the type map to specify mapping between the EMPLOYEE
SQL type and the EmployeeObj
custom object class.
To do this, first create your statement and result set objects, then select the EMPLOYEE_LIST
associated with the SALES
department into the result set. Cast the result set to OracleResultSet
so you can use the getARRAY
method to retrieve the EMPLOYEE_LIST
into an ARRAY
object (employeeArray
in the following example).
The EmployeeObj
custom object class in this example implements the SQLData
interface.
Statement s = conn.createStatement(); OracleResultSet rs = (OracleResultSet)s.executeQuery ("SELECT Employees FROM employee_table WHERE DeptName = 'SALES'"); // get the array object ARRAY employeeArray = ((OracleResultSet)rs).getARRAY(1);
Now that you have the EMPLOYEE_LIST
object, get the existing type map and add an entry that maps the EMPLOYEE
SQL type to the EmployeeObj
Java type.
// add type map entry to map SQL type // "EMPLOYEE" to Java type "EmployeeObj" Map map = conn.getTypeMap(); map.put("EMPLOYEE", Class.forName("EmployeeObj"));
Next, retrieve the SQL EMPLOYEE
objects from the EMPLOYEE_LIST
. To do this, call the getArray
method of the employeeArray
array object. This method returns an array of objects. The getArray
method returns the EMPLOYEE
objects into the employees
object array.
// Retrieve array elements Object[] employees = (Object[]) employeeArray.getArray();
Finally, create a loop to assign each of the EMPLOYEE
SQL objects to the EmployeeObj
Java object emp
.
// Each array element is mapped to EmployeeObj object. for (int i=0; i<employees.length; i++) { EmployeeObj emp = (EmployeeObj) employees[i]; ... }
This chapter primarily describes the functionality of the oracle.sql.ARRAY
class, but it is also possible to access Oracle collections through custom Java classes or, more specifically, custom collection classes.
You can create custom collection classes yourself, but the most convenient way is to use the Oracle JPublisher utility. Custom collection classes generated by JPublisher offer all the functionality described earlier in this chapter, as well as the following advantages:
They are strongly typed. This can help you find coding errors during compilation that might not otherwise be discovered until run time.
They can be changeable, or mutable. Custom collection classes produced by JPublisher, unlike the ARRAY
class, allow you to get and set individual elements using the getElement
and setElement
methods.
A custom collection class must satisfy three requirements:
It must implement the oracle.sql.ORAData
interface. Note that the standard JDBC SQLData
interface, which is an alternative for custom object classes, is not intended for custom collection classes.
It, or a companion class, must implement the oracle.sql.ORADataFactory
interface, for creating instances of the custom collection class.
It must have a means of storing the collection data. Typically it will directly or indirectly include an oracle.sql.ARRAY
attribute for this purpose.
A JPublisher-generated custom collection class implements ORAData
and ORADataFactory
and indirectly includes an oracle.sql.ARRAY
attribute. The custom collection class will have an oracle.jpub.runtime.MutableArray
attribute. The MutableArray
class has an oracle.sql.ARRAY
attribute.
Note:
When you use JPublisher to create a custom collection class, you must use theORAData
implementation. This will be true if the JPublisher -usertypes
mapping option is set to oracle
, which is the default.
You cannot use a SQLData
implementation for a custom collection class. Setting the -usertypes
mapping option to jdbc
is invalid.
As an example of custom collection classes being strongly typed, if you define an Oracle collection MYVARRAY
, then JPublisher can generate a MyVarray
custom collection class. Using MyVarray
instances, instead of generic oracle.sql.ARRAY
instances, makes it easier to catch errors during compilation instead of at run time. For example, if you accidentally assign some other kind of array into a MyVarray
variable.
If you do not use custom collection classes, then you would use standard java.sql.Array
instances, or oracle.sql.ARRAY
instances, to map to your collections.