Summary: in this tutorial, you will learn about the PL/SQL record and how to use records to manage

your program data effectively.

Overview of PL/SQL Record

A PL/SQL record is a composite data structure which consists of multiple fields; each has its own value.
The following picture shows an example record that includes first name, last name, email, and phone
number:

PL/SQL record helps you simplify your code by shifting from field-level to record-level operations.

PL/SQL has three types of records: table-based, cursor-based, programmer-defined. Before using a
record, you must declare it.

Declaring records

You define and declare records in the declaration section of a block or via package specification.

Table-based record
To declare a table-based record, you use the %ROWTYPE attribute with a table name. A table-based
record has each field corresponding to a column in a table.


DECLARE
record_name table_name%ROWTYPE;
The following example declares a record named r_contact with the same structure as the contacts
table in the sample database:


DECLARE
r_contact contacts%ROWTYPE;

Cursor-based record
A cursor-based record has each field corresponding a column or alias in the cursor SELECT statement.

To declare a cursor-based record, you use the %ROWTYPE attribute with an explicit cursor as shown
below:


DECLARE
record_name cursor_name%ROWTYPE;

The following example declares a record with the same structure as an explicit cursor:


DECLARE
CURSOR c_contacts IS
SELECT first_name, last_name, phone
FROM contacts;
r_contact c_contacts%ROWTYPE;

In this example:

First, declare an explicit cursor that fetches data from the first_name , last_name , and phone
columns of the contacts table.

Second, declare a record named r_contact whose structure is the same as the c_contacts
cursor.

Programmer-defined record
The table-based and cursor-based records are good enough when you need to create records based
on existing structures.
If you want to create a record whose structure is not based on the existing ones, then you use
programmer-defined record.

To declare a programmer-defined record, you use the following steps:

1. Define a record type that contains the structure you want in your record.
2. Declare a record based on the record type.

The following shows the syntax for defining a record type:


TYPE record_type IS RECORD (
field_name1 data_type1 [[NOT NULL] := | DEFAULT default_value],
field_name2 data_type2 [[NOT NULL] := | DEFAULT default_value],
...
);

To declare a record based on the predefined record type, you use the following syntax:


record_name record_type;

The following example defines a record type whose name is customer_contacts and a record whose
type is customer_contacts :


DECLARE
-- define a record type
TYPE r_customer_contact_t
IS
RECORD
(
customer_name customers.name%TYPE,
first_name contacts.first_name%TYPE,
last_name contacts.last_name%TYPE );
-- declare a record
r_customer_contacts r_customer_contact_t;
BEGIN
 NULL;
END;

Referencing a record’s field

You reference a field in a record via the dot notation as shown below:


record_name.field_name

For example, to reference the first_name field of the r_contact record, you use the following
expression:


r_contact.first_name

Assigning records

You can assign a record to another record of the same type, for example:


r_contact1 := r_contact2;

But you cannot compare two records of the same type via a comparisn operator. The following
example is an invalid comparison:


IF r_contact1 = r_contact2 THEN
...
END IF;

In this case, you need to compare individual fields of the record instead:


IF r.contact1.first_name = r.contact2.first_name AND
r.contact1.last_name = r.contact2.last_name AND
r.contact1.phone = r.contact2.phone THEN
 ...
END IF;

You can assign a value to the individual field of a record, for example:


r_contact.first_name := 'John';
r_contact.last_name := 'Doe';
r_contact.phone := '(408-654-2865)';

You can use SELECT INTO a whole record (or individual fields):


SELECT
first_name, last_name, phone
INTO
r_contact
FROM
contacts
WHERE
contact_id = 100;

You can FETCH INTO a whole record or individual fields:


-- fetch a whole record
FETCH cur_contacts INTO r_contact;

-- fetch individual fields

FETCH
cur_contacts
INTO
r_contact.first_name,
r_contact.last_name,
r_contact.phone;

Records and INSERT / UPDATE statements

You can insert a new row into a table using a %ROWTYPE record without having to specify each field. The
following statement creates a new table named persons  for demonstration:


CREATE TABLE persons (
person_id NUMBER GENERATED BY DEFAULT AS IDENTITY,
first_name VARCHAR2( 50 ) NOT NULL,
last_name VARCHAR2( 50 ) NOT NULL,
primary key (person_id)
);

The following block inserts a new row into the persons table using a %ROWTYPE record:


DECLARE
r_person persons%ROWTYPE;

BEGIN
-- assign values to person record
r_person.person_id := 1;
r_person.first_name := 'John';
r_person.last_name := 'Doe';

-- insert a new person

INSERT INTO persons VALUES r_person;
END;

To update a row from a %ROWTYPE record, you use the SET ROW keywords as shown in the following
example:


DECLARE
r_person persons%ROWTYPE;

BEGIN
-- get person data of person id 1
SELECT * INTO r_person
FROM persons
 WHERE person_id = 1;

-- change the person's last name

r_person.last_name := 'Smith';

-- update the person

UPDATE persons
SET ROW = r_person
WHERE person_id = r_person.person_id;
END;

Nested record

A record can contain a field which is another record. Nesting records is a powerful way to structure
your program data and hide complexity in your code.

The following example declares a record type named address . Then in the record type customer has
two fields ship_to and bill_to which are based on the address record type.


DECLARE
TYPE address IS RECORD (
street_name VARCHAR2(255),
city VARCHAR2(100),
state VARCHAR2(100),
postal_code VARCHAR(10),
country VARCHAR2(100)
);
TYPE customer IS RECORD(
customer_name VARCHAR2(100),
ship_to address,
bill_to address
);
r_one_time_customer customer;
BEGIN

r_one_time_customer.customer_name := 'John Doe';

 -- assign address
r_one_time_customer.ship_to.street_name := '4000 North 1st street';
r_one_time_customer.ship_to.city := 'San Jose';
r_one_time_customer.ship_to.state := 'CA';
r_one_time_customer.ship_to.postal_code := '95134';
r_one_time_customer.ship_to.country := 'USA';
-- bill-to address is same as ship-to address
r_one_time_customer.bill_to := one_time_customer.ship_to;
END;

In this tutorial, you have learned about PL/SQL record and how to use it effectively to simplify your
code.

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