Oracle PL/SQL Language Pocket Reference, 4th Edition

Records in PL/SQL

A PL/SQL record is a data structure composed of multiple pieces of information called fields. To use a record, you must first define it and declare a variable of this type. There are three types of records: table-based, cursor-based, and programmer-defined.

Declaring Records

Define and declare records either in the declaration section of a PL/SQL block or globally, via a package specification.

You do not have to explicitly define table-based or cursor-based records, as they are implicitly defined with the same structure as a table or a cursor. Variables of these types are declared via the %ROWTYPE attribute. The record’s fields correspond to the table’s columns or the columns in the SELECT list. For example:

DECLARE
   -- Declare table-based record for company table.
   comp_rec  company%ROWTYPE

   CURSOR comp_summary_cur IS
      SELECT c.company_id,SUM(s.gross_sales) gross
        FROM company c ,sales s
       WHERE c.company_id = s.company_id;

   -- Declare a cursor-based record.
   comp_summary_rec  comp_summary_cur%ROWTYPE;

Programmer-defined records must be explicitly defined with the TYPE statement in the PL/SQL declaration section or in a package specification. Variables of this type then can be declared as shown here:

DECLARE TYPE name_rectype IS RECORD( prefix VARCHAR2(15) ,first_name VARCHAR2(30) ,middle_name VARCHAR2(30) ,sur_name VARCHAR2(30) ,suffix VARCHAR2(10) ); TYPE employee_rectype IS RECORD ( emp_id NUMBER(10) NOT NULL ,mgr_id NUMBER(10) ,dept_no dept.deptno%TYPE ,title VARCHAR2(20) ...