Glossary
atomically null object
An object whose value is NULL
is called atomically null. An atomically null object is different from an object that has null values for all its attributes.
Parent topic: Glossary
Binary Large Object (BLOB)
A large object data type whose value consists of raw binary data.
Parent topic: Glossary
character large object (CLOB)
The large object (LOB) data type whose value is composed of character data corresponding to the database character set.
Parent topic: Glossary
column object
An object that is stored as a column of a relational database table (as opposed to an object table). A column object can also be an attribute of another object. A column object is also known as a stored inline object or an embedded object.
Parent topic: Glossary
dynamic method dispatch
A method call that is dispatched at run-time to the nearest method implementation when there are multiple implementations of the same method using overriding.
Parent topic: Glossary
leaf-level scalar object
An object that is not a collection and is not composed of other types.
Parent topic: Glossary
literal invocation
An invocation where all arguments are literals or invocations of literal methods. Arguments cannot be variables.
Parent topic: Glossary
multilevel collection type
Collection types whose elements are collection types, either directly or indirectly.
Parent topic: Glossary
multiset operators
An operator that combines elements of two nested tables into a single nested table.
Parent topic: Glossary
normalize
The process of removing redundancy in data by separating the data into multiple tables.
Parent topic: Glossary
object identifier
Identifier for a row object which can be either system-generated (default) or based on a primary key using the CREATE
TABLE
statement.
Parent topic: Glossary
object instance
An instance of an object type. Also referred to as an object.
Parent topic: Glossary
object type
The type of the object instance. It is similar to a record that has methods. Object types are user-defined.
Parent topic: Glossary
polymorphism
Allows handling data types and methods generically using the same interface. In polymorphic overriding, subtypes redefine a method they have inherited. In polymorphic overloading, there may be several versions of the same method, with different parameters.
Parent topic: Glossary
primary key
The column or set of columns specified in the PRIMARY KEY constraint of a table.
Parent topic: Glossary
REF
An Oracle built-in data type that encapsulates references to row objects of a specified object type.
Parent topic: Glossary
specializing
Adding new attributes or methods to a subtype that the parent supertype does not have, or changing the implementation of a method or methods.
Parent topic: Glossary
stored procedure
A PL/SQL block that is stored in the database and can be executed from an application.
Parent topic: Glossary
substitutability
A supertype is substitutable if one of its subtypes can substitute or stand in for it in a variable or column whose declared type is the supertype.
Parent topic: Glossary
type evolution
The modification of a subtype of a type, typically using an ALTER
statement.
Parent topic: Glossary
VARRAY
An ordered set of data elements, that are of the same data type or a subtype of the declared data type.
Parent topic: Glossary