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PL/SQL User's Guide and Reference

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setting is saved so that the procedure is compiled the same way if it is later<br />

invalidated.<br />

See Also:<br />

page 12-14<br />

"Compiling <strong>PL</strong>/<strong>SQL</strong> Code for Native Execution" on<br />

■<br />

Improved Globalization <strong>and</strong> National Language Support<br />

Data can be stored in Unicode format using fixed-width or variable-width<br />

character sets. String h<strong>and</strong>ling <strong>and</strong> storage declarations can be specified using<br />

byte lengths, or character lengths where the number of bytes is computed for<br />

you. You can set up the entire database to use the same length semantics for<br />

strings, or specify the settings for individual procedures; this setting is<br />

remembered if a procedure is invalidated.<br />

See Also:<br />

■ "Character Types" on page 3-5<br />

■ "National Character Types" on page 3-10<br />

■<br />

Table Functions <strong>and</strong> Cursor Expressions<br />

You can query a set of returned rows like a table. Result sets can be passed from<br />

one function to another, letting you set up a sequence of transformations with<br />

no table to hold intermediate results. Rows of the result set can be returned a<br />

few at a time, reducing the memory overhead for producing large result sets<br />

within a function.<br />

See Also:<br />

■ "Accepting <strong>and</strong> Returning Multiple Rows with Table Functions" on<br />

page 8-30<br />

■ "Using Cursor Expressions" on page 6-41<br />

■<br />

Multilevel Collections<br />

You can nest the collection types, for example to create a VARRAY of <strong>PL</strong>/<strong>SQL</strong><br />

tables, a VARRAY of VARRAYs, or a <strong>PL</strong>/<strong>SQL</strong> table of <strong>PL</strong>/<strong>SQL</strong> tables. You can<br />

model complex data structures such as multidimensional arrays in a natural<br />

way.<br />

See Also: "Using Multilevel Collections" on page 5-26<br />

■<br />

Better Integration for LOB Datatypes<br />

xxxv

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