Overview

An ANYDATA TYPE contains an instance of a given type and the description of the type. ANYDATA is self-describing.

Construction

There are two ways to construct an ANYDATA:

• Construct an ANYDATA in its entirety through a single call to CONVERT *.

   STATIC FUNCTION ConvertNumber(num IN NUMBER) return AnyData,
   STATIC FUNCTION ConvertDate(dat IN DATE) return AnyData,
   STATIC FUNCTION ConvertChar(c IN CHAR) return AnyData,
   STATIC FUNCTION ConvertVarchar(c IN VARCHAR) return AnyData,
   STATIC FUNCTION ConvertVarchar2(c IN VARCHAR2) return AnyData,
   STATIC FUNCTION ConvertRaw(r IN RAW) return AnyData,
   STATIC FUNCTION ConvertBlob(b IN BLOB) return AnyData,
   STATIC FUNCTION ConvertClob(c IN CLOB) return AnyData,
   STATIC FUNCTION ConvertObject(obj IN "<ADT_1>") return AnyData,
   STATIC FUNCTION ConvertCollection(col IN "<COLLECTION_1>") return AnyData,
  /* Convert calls to Datetime and Nchar types. */
    STATIC FUNCTION ConvertTimestamp(ts IN TIMESTAMP_UNCONSTRAINED) return AnyData,
    STATIC FUNCTION ConvertTimestampTZ(ts IN TIMESTAMP_TZ_UNCONSTRAINED) return AnyData,
    STATIC FUNCTION ConvertTimestampLTZ(ts IN TIMESTAMP_LTZ_UNCONSTRAINED) return AnyData,
    STATIC FUNCTION ConvertIntervalYM(inv IN YMINTERVAL_UNCONSTRAINED) return AnyData,
    STATIC FUNCTION ConvertIntervalDS(inv IN DSINTERVAL_UNCONSTRAINED) return AnyData,
    STATIC FUNCTION ConvertNchar(nc IN NCHAR) return AnyData,
    STATIC FUNCTION ConvertNVarchar2(nc IN NVARCHAR2) return AnyData,
   /* Convert calls to BFloat, BDouble, and URowid types. */
    STATIC FUNCTION ConvertBFloat(fl IN BINARY_FLOAT) return AnyData,
    STATIC FUNCTION ConvertBDouble(dbl IN BINARY_DOUBLE) return AnyData,
    STATIC FUNCTION ConvertURowid(rid IN UROWID) return AnyData,
  

• Construct an ANYDATA by using a piece-by-piece approach.

  A call to the BEGINCREATE static procedure begins the construction process and a call to the ENDCREATE member procedure finishes the construction process. Between these two calls, you can use SET* calls to set the individual attributes of an object type or the elements of a collection. For piece-by-piece access to the attributes of objects and elements of a collection, the PIECEWISE member procedure should be called prior to GET* member functions.

  Notice

  The ANYDATA must be constructed or accessed sequentially starting from its first attribute (or collection element). The BEGINCREATE call automatically begins the construction in a piece-by-piece manner. PIECEWISE does not need to be called immediately after BEGINCREATE is called. ENDCREATE should be called to finish the construction process (before which any access calls can be made).

Access

Access functions are available based on SQL. These functions do not throw exceptions in case of type mismatch. Instead, if the type of the ANYDATA does not match the type of access, these functions return NULL. If you want to use only ANYDATA functions of the appropriate types returned in a query, you should use a WHERE clause that contains GETTYPENAME and select the type you are interested in, such as SYS.NUMBER. Each of these functions returns a value of the specified data type in a SYS.ANYDATA wrapper.

  MEMBER FUNCTION AccessNumber(self IN AnyData) return NUMBER DETERMINISTIC,
  MEMBER FUNCTION AccessDate(self IN AnyData) return DATE DETERMINISTIC,
  MEMBER FUNCTION AccessChar(self IN AnyData) return CHAR DETERMINISTIC,
  MEMBER FUNCTION AccessVarchar(self IN AnyData) return VARCHAR DETERMINISTIC,
  MEMBER FUNCTION AccessVarchar2(self IN AnyData) return VARCHAR2 DETERMINISTIC,
  MEMBER FUNCTION AccessRaw(self IN AnyData) return RAW DETERMINISTIC,
  MEMBER FUNCTION AccessBlob(self IN AnyData) return BLOB DETERMINISTIC,
  MEMBER FUNCTION AccessClob(self IN AnyData) return CLOB DETERMINISTIC,
  MEMBER FUNCTION AccessTimestamp(self IN AnyData) return TIMESTAMP_UNCONSTRAINED DETERMINISTIC,
  MEMBER FUNCTION AccessTimestampTZ(self IN AnyData) return TIMESTAMP_TZ_UNCONSTRAINED DETERMINISTIC,
  MEMBER FUNCTION AccessTimestampLTZ(self IN AnyData) return TIMESTAMP_LTZ_UNCONSTRAINED DETERMINISTIC,
  MEMBER FUNCTION AccessIntervalYM(self IN AnyData) return YMINTERVAL_UNCONSTRAINED DETERMINISTIC,
  MEMBER FUNCTION AccessIntervalDS(self IN AnyData) return DSINTERVAL_UNCONSTRAINED DETERMINISTIC,
  MEMBER FUNCTION AccessNchar(self IN AnyData) return NCHAR DETERMINISTIC,
  MEMBER FUNCTION AccessNVarchar2(self IN AnyData) return NVARCHAR2 DETERMINISTIC,
  /* Access calls to Float, Double, and Rowid */
  MEMBER FUNCTION AccessBFloat(self IN AnyData) return BINARY_FLOAT DETERMINISTIC,
  MEMBER FUNCTION AccessBDouble(self IN AnyData) return BINARY_DOUBLE DETERMINISTIC,
  MEMBER FUNCTION AccessURowid(self IN AnyData) return UROWID DETERMINISTIC;

Subprograms

The following table describes the ANYDATA subprograms supported by the current OceanBase Database version.