Re: Temporary table

Fuzzy wrote:
>
> People,
>
> In SQL Server and Sybase, there is the concept of a temporary table,
> that can be used as a holding space for results that will need further
> work.
>
> Is there such a beast in Oracle? I can't find any references in the
> doco, and I've thought about creating views on the fly, but this could
> get messy.
>
> Ciao
> Fuzzy
> :-)

In Oracle PL/SQL Programming by Steven Feuerstein published by O'Reilly and
Associates, Inc. in chapter 10, he discusses PL/SQL tables. "A PL/SQL table
is a one-dimensional, unbounded, sparse collection of homogeneous elements,
indexed by integers. It is like an array; it is like a table, yet it is not exactly either..." He says that these were introduced in PL/SQL version
2. His book some good examples, plus the ever popular companion disk with
the source to examples and some useful packages.

I haven't actually used this stuff yet, but I think I understand how it works.

You can create a PL/SQL table in a stored procedure of datatype %rowtype.
This gives you an "array" of structures with the same structure as your permanent table. You populate the table with your intermediate results. The PL/SQL table is private to your procedure, so you don't have to name conflicts with other instances of your program as you would with a regular
SQL table. You can access the intermediate results by an index, like an array, or you can set up a primary key.

If this sounds like what you are looking for, give it a shot. I'd appreciate
a note back on how it worked for you if you use it.

-Thanks
 Allan Hicks Received on Fri Jul 19 1996 - 00:00:00 CEST