Description

Note the following:

• To create an instance of JSON_ELEMENT_T, use the parse function. See the “Constructors” section below for details.

• You cannot create an empty JSON_ELEMENT_T instance. To create an empty JSON container, create it based on one of the subtypes.

• To cast a JSON_ELEMENT_T into a subtype (for example, JSON_OBJECT_T), you need to perform an explicit cast using TREAT AS. For example:

  TREAT (elem AS JSON_OBJECT_T)

Constructors

You create a JSON_ELEMENT_T instance using the parse function. The function takes as input VARCHAR2, CLOB, or BLOB data, and returns a JSON_ELEMENT_T instance.

STATIC FUNCTION parse(json VARCHAR2) RETURN JSON_ELEMENT_T
STATIC FUNCTION parse(json CLOB)     RETURN JSON_ELEMENT_T
STATIC FUNCTION parse(json BLOB)     RETURN JSON_ELEMENT_T

Only UTF8-encoded JSON is passed as a BLOB.

The parse function takes a JSON string as input and sets up an internal representation of the JSON data. If the provided input is not valid JSON, then an error message is raised. Valid JSON has to pass the lax check of the “IS JSON” SQL condition.

Serialization

Serialization is the inverse of the parse function. The serialization operation takes the in-memory representation of the JSON data and prints it to a string. The serialization functions and procedures are:

MEMBER FUNCTION to_String    RETURN VARCHAR2
MEMBER FUNCTION to_Number    RETURN NUMBER
MEMBER FUNCTION to_Date      RETURN DATE
MEMBER FUNCTION to_Timestamp RETURN TIMESTAMP
MEMBER FUNCTION to_Boolean   RETURN BOOLEAN
MEMBER FUNCTION to_Clob      RETURN CLOB
MEMBER FUNCTION to_Blob      RETURN BLOB

MEMBER PROCEDURE to_Clob(c IN OUT CLOB)
MEMBER PROCEDURE to_Blob(c IN OUT BLOB)

The to_Clob and to_Blob procedures accept a CLOB or BLOB input and enable you to provide a LOB to be used as the serialization destination. For instance, EMPTY_LOB can be provided. The input LOB cannot be NULL.

If the to_Clob function is used, then a new CLOB is created. If you do not want to create a CLOB first, then you can use the to_Clob or to_Blob functions, which take no parameter and generate a temp lob.

to_Blob serializes to UTF8 format only.

Introspection

Introspection enables you to discover properties of JSON objects without modifying them. The introspection functions are:

MEMBER FUNCTION is_Object    RETURN BOOLEAN
MEMBER FUNCTION is_Array     RETURN BOOLEAN
MEMBER FUNCTION is_Scalar    RETURN BOOLEAN
MEMBER FUNCTION is_String    RETURN BOOLEAN
MEMBER FUNCTION is_Number    RETURN BOOLEAN
MEMBER FUNCTION is_Boolean   RETURN BOOLEAN
MEMBER FUNCTION is_True      RETURN BOOLEAN
MEMBER FUNCTION is_False     RETURN BOOLEAN
MEMBER FUNCTION is_Null      RETURN BOOLEAN
MEMBER FUNCTION is_Date      RETURN BOOLEAN
MEMBER FUNCTION is_Timestamp RETURN BOOLEAN
MEMBER FUNCTION get_Size     RETURN NUMBER

The return value of the get_size function depends on the JSON type:

• For a scalar, it returns 1.

• For an object, it returns the number of keys.

• For an array, it returns the number of items.

Note that JSON does not support dates and timestamps natively. Instead they are typically modeled as strings. The DOM API enables you to add dates and timestamps as scalar values and preserve them until serialization to JSON, where they are printed as string following the ISO 8601 format. If a SQL value of type date or timestamp has been added, then the is_Date and is_Timestamp functions return true. If a date has been added as a string (e.g. as ISO 8601), then the is_Date and is_Timestamp functions return false. You can use Oracle conversion function to_Date and to_Timestamp to convert a string representation of a date, and timestamp to the Oracle representation.

Error Handling

You can set the level of error handling for JSON processing. You might not want an error to be raised for every mismatch. The on_Error procedure enables you to specify when errors should be raised:

MEMBER PROCEDURE on_Error(value NUMBER)

The on_Error procedure defines what happens if an error is encountered during a PL/SQL operation, for instance, a get call.

The default is to not raise an error but to return NULL instead.

You invoke On_error on a JSON_ELEMENT_T instance and it sets the error behavior for all subsequent calls. To reset the behavior to the default, you can call on_Error(0).

Values for the value parameter are:

You can combine values. For example, you can specify 7 to indicate a combination of 3 and 4.

In the following example, an error is raised because the value of “a” is “xyz”, which cannot be converted to a number. If the on_Error procedure had not been called, then NULL would be returned, and no error would be raised.

declare
 	jo JSON_OBJECT_T;
begin
 	jo := JSON_OBJECT_T.parse('{a:"xyz"}');
 	jo.On_error(1);
 	dbms_output.put_line(jo.get_Number('a'));
end;
/

Constructors

You can create an empty JSON_OBJECT_T instance using the following constructor.

   CONSTRUCTOR FUNCTION JSON_OBJECT_T RETURN SELF AS RESULT

You can create a JSON_OBJECT_T instance using one of the following parse functions:

STATIC FUNCTION parse(json VARCHAR2) RETURN JSON_OBJECT_T
STATIC FUNCTION parse(json CLOB)     RETURN JSON_OBJECT_T
STATIC FUNCTION parse(json BLOB)     RETURN JSON_OBJECT_T

You can also create a JSON_OBJECT_T instance using one of the following constructors:

CONSTRUCTOR FUNCTION JSON_OBJECT_T(jsn VARCHAR2) RETURN SELF AS RESULT,
CONSTRUCTOR FUNCTION JSON_OBJECT_T(jsn CLOB) RETURN SELF AS RESULT,
CONSTRUCTOR FUNCTION JSON_OBJECT_T(jsn BLOB) RETURN SELF AS RESULT,
CONSTRUCTOR FUNCTION JSON_OBJECT_T(e JSON_ELEMENT_T) RETURN SELF AS RESULT

Only UTF8-encoded JSON is passed as a BLOB.

The parse function takes a JSON string as input and sets up an internal representation of the JSON data. If the provided input is not a valid JSON object, then an error message is raised. The input has to specify a JSON object, not an array.

Get Functions and Procedures

The following functions and procedures enable you to retrieve the value of the JSON object:

MEMBER FUNCTION get(key VARCHAR2)           RETURN JSON_ELEMENT_T
MEMBER FUNCTION get_String(key VARCHAR2)    RETURN VARCHAR2
MEMBER FUNCTION get_Number(key VARCHAR2)    RETURN NUMBER
MEMBER FUNCTION get_Date(key VARCHAR2)      RETURN DATE
MEMBER FUNCTION get_Timestamp(key VARCHAR2) RETURN TIMESTAMP
MEMBER FUNCTION get_Boolean(key VARCHAR2)   RETURN BOOLEAN
MEMBER FUNCTION get_Clob(key VARCHAR2)      RETURN CLOB
MEMBER FUNCTION get_Blob(key VARCHAR2)      RETURN BLOB
MEMBER FUNCTION get_Object(key VARCHAR2)    RETURN JSON_OBJECT_T
MEMBER FUNCTION get_Array(key VARCHAR2)     RETURN JSON_ARRAY_T

MEMBER PROCEDURE get_Clob(key NUMBER, c IN OUT CLOB)
MEMBER PROCEDURE get_Blob(key NUMBER, c IN OUT BLOB)

Note:

• The get function has reference semantics. This means that if the returned JSON_ELEMENT_T is modified, then the containing JSON_ELEMENT_T is also changed. See the Reference Semantics section below for details.

• The GET_STRING function converts the value to a string if it is not already a string. Thus, the GET_STRING function returns a non-null value even if IS_STRING returns false.

• All the “get” functions perform a conversion if possible. If no conversion is possible, then an error might be raised, depending on what ON_ERROR is set to.

The GET_CLOB and GET_BLOB procedures, which accept a CLOB or BLOB as input, enable you to provide a LOB to be used as serialization destination. For instance, EMPTY_LOB can be provided. If you use the GET_CLOB function instead, then a new CLOB will be created implicitly. The input LOB cannot be NULL. If you do not want to create a BLOB or CLOB first, you can use the GET_CLOB or GET_BLOB functions, which take no parameter and generates a temp LOB.

GET_BLOB serializes to UTF8 format only.

Set Procedures

The following procedures enable you to set the value of a JSON object. Existing values, if present, will be overwritten.

MEMBER PROCEDURE put(key VARCHAR2, value JSON_ELEMENT_T)
MEMBER PROCEDURE put(key VARCHAR2, value VARCHAR2)
MEMBER PROCEDURE put(key VARCHAR2, value NUMBER)
MEMBER PROCEDURE put(key VARCHAR2, value BOOLEAN)
MEMBER PROCEDURE put(key VARCHAR2, value DATE)
MEMBER PROCEDURE put(key VARCHAR2, value TIMESTAMP)
MEMBER PROCEDURE put_Null(key VARCHAR2)

Introspection Functions

Introspection enables you to discover properties of JSON objects without modifying them. The introspection functions are:

MEMBER FUNCTION has(key VARCHAR2)      RETURN BOOLEAN
MEMBER FUNCTION get_Type(key VARCHAR2) RETURN VARCHAR2
MEMBER FUNCTION get_Keys               RETURN JSON_KEY_LIST

The GET_KEYS function returns an object type of JSON_KEY_LIST, which is a varray of VARCHAR2(4000). The varray contains the names of keys in the JSON object. The example below walks through the items of the varray to build a JSON_ARRAY_T object that contains all key names.

declare
  jo JSON_OBJECT_T;
  ja JSON_ARRAY_T;
  keys JSON_KEY_LIST;
  keys_string VARCHAR2(100);

begin
  ja := new JSON_ARRAY_T;
  jo := JSON_OBJECT_T.parse('{"name":"fred",
                              "jobTitle":"codemonkey",
                              "projects":["json", "xml"]}');
  keys := jo.get_keys;
  for i in 1..keys.count loop
     ja.append(keys(i));
  end loop;

  keys_string := ja.to_string;
  dbms_output.put_line(keys_string);
end;
/

The output is:

["name","jobTitle","projects"]

Modification Procedures

The following procedures enable you to remove or rename keys in a JSON object.

MEMBER PROCEDURE remove(key VARCHAR2)
MEMBER PROCEDURE rename_Key(keyOld VARCHAR2, keyNew VARCHAR2)

Duplicate key names are not supported and will raise an error.

Clone Function

This function makes a copy of the JSON object. Reference semantics is changed to value semantics.

MEMBER FUNCTION clone RETURN JSON_OBJECT_T

Reference Semantics

Calling the get function that returns a JSON_ELEMENT_T object always returns a reference to the complex values instead of a copy. This means that changing the returned value affects its container. See the example below.

declare
  data    JSON_OBJECT_T;
  address JSON_OBJECT_T;
  zip     number;

begin

  data := new JSON_OBJECT_T('{
	"first": "John",
	"last": "Doe",
	"address": {
		"country": "USA",
		"zip": "94065"
	}
  }'); 

  address := data.get_object('address');
  dbms_output.put_line(address.to_string);
  
  -- 1) VALUE SEMANTICS for scalar values 
  -- (changing the value has no effect on container)
  zip := address.get_number('zip');
  dbms_output.put_line(zip);
  zip := 12345;
  dbms_output.put_line(zip);
  -- address is still the same
  dbms_output.put_line(address.to_string);


  -- 2) REFERENCE SEMANTICS for complex values
  --    'address' is a reference to the complex address values inside 'data'
  address.put('zip', 12345);
  address.put('street', 'Detour Road');
  dbms_output.put_line(data.to_string);
end;
/

In cases where you do not want the reference semantics, you can use the clone function to create a copy of the returned object. This decouples the value from its container. In the example above, you can create a copy of the “address” object by replacing this line:

address := data.get_object('address');

with this line:

address := data.get_object('address').clone;

After this, changing the address with have no effect on the value of the ‘data’ containing object.

Update Example

The following example updates the price of an item by 10%.

WITH
  FUNCTION updatePrice(jsonTxt in VARCHAR2 ) RETURN VARCHAR2 IS
  jo JSON_OBJECT_T;
  oldPrice NUMBER;

  BEGIN
    jo := new JSON_OBJECT_T(jsonTxt);
    oldPrice := jo.get_number('price');
    jo.put('price', oldPrice * 1.1);
    RETURN jo.to_string();
  END;
SELECT updatePrice(col)
FROM   t1;

Constructors

You can create an empty JSON_ARRAY_T instance using the following constructor.

   CONSTRUCTOR FUNCTION JSON_ARRAY_T RETURN SELF AS RESULT

You can create a JSON_ARRAY_T instance using one the following parse functions:

STATIC FUNCTION parse(json VARCHAR2) RETURN JSON_ARRAY_T
STATIC FUNCTION parse(json CLOB)     RETURN JSON_ARRAY_T
STATIC FUNCTION parse(json BLOB)     RETURN JSON_ARRAY_T

You can also create a JSON_ARRAY_T instance using one the following constructors:

CONSTRUCTOR FUNCTION JSON_Array_T(jsn VARCHAR2) RETURN SELF AS RESULT
CONSTRUCTOR FUNCTION JSON_Array_T(jsn CLOB) RETURN SELF AS RESULT
CONSTRUCTOR FUNCTION JSON_Array_T(jsn BLOB) RETURN SELF AS RESULT
CONSTRUCTOR FUNCTION JSON_Array_T(e JSON_ELEMENT_T) RETURN SELF AS RESULT

Only UTF8-encoded JSON is passed as a BLOB.

The parse function takes a JSON string as input and sets up an internal representation of the JSON data. If the provided input is not valid JSON, then an error message is raised. The input has to specify a JSON array, not an object.

Get Functions and Procedures

The following functions and procedures enable you to retrieve the value of the JSON array:

MEMBER FUNCTION get(pos NUMBER)           RETURN JSON_ELEMENT_T
MEMBER FUNCTION get_String(pos NUMBER)    RETURN VARCHAR2
MEMBER FUNCTION get_Number(pos NUMBER)    RETURN NUMBER
MEMBER FUNCTION get_Date(pos NUMBER)      RETURN DATE
MEMBER FUNCTION get_Timestamp(pos NUMBER) RETURN TIMESTAMP
MEMBER FUNCTION get_Boolean(pos NUMBER)   RETURN BOOLEAN
MEMBER FUNCTION get_Clob(pos NUMBER)      RETURN CLOB
MEMBER FUNCTION get_Blob(pos NUMBER)      RETURN BLOB

MEMBER PROCEDURE get_Clob(pos NUMBER, c IN OUT CLOB)
MEMBER PROCEDURE get_Blob(pos NUMBER, c IN OUT BLOB)

Note:

• The get function has reference semantics. This means that if the returned JSON_ELEMENT_T is modified, then the containing JSON_ELEMENT_T is changed too.

• The GET_STRING function converts the value to a string if it is not already a string. The function returns a non-null value even if IS_STRING returns false.

• All the “get” functions perform a conversion if possible. If no conversion is possible, then an error might be raised, depending on what ON_ERROR is set to.

The GET_CLOB and GET_BLOB procedures, which accept a CLOB or BLOB as input, enable you to provide a LOB to be used as serialization destination. For instance, EMPTY_LOB can be provided. If you use the GET_CLOB function instead, then a new CLOB will be created implicitly. The input LOB cannot be NULL. If you do not want to create a BLOB or CLOB first, you can use the GET_CLOB or GET_BLOB functions, which take no parameter and generates a temp LOB.

GET_BLOB serializes to UTF8 format only.

Set Procedures

The following procedures enable you to set the value at the specified position in the JSON array. These procedures insert (not overwrite) at the specified position unless overwrite is requested.

MEMBER PROCEDURE put(pos NUMBER, value VARCHAR2, overwrite BOOLEAN DEFAULT FALSE)
MEMBER PROCEDURE put(pos NUMBER, value NUMBER, overwrite BOOLEAN DEFAULT FALSE)
MEMBER PROCEDURE put(pos NUMBER, value BOOLEAN, overwrite BOOLEAN DEFAULT FALSE)
MEMBER PROCEDURE put(pos NUMBER, value JSON_ELEMENT_T, overwrite BOOLEAN DEFAULT FALSE)
MEMBER PROCEDURE put(pos NUMBER, value DATE, overwrite BOOLEAN DEFAULT FALSE) 
MEMBER PROCEDURE put(pos NUMBER, value TIMESTAMP, overwrite BOOLEAN DEFAULT FALSE)
MEMBER PROCEDURE put_Null(pos NUMBER, overwrite BOOLEAN DEFAULT FALSE)

The following procedures append the specified value to the end of the JSON array:

MEMBER PROCEDURE append(value JSON_ELEMENT_T)
MEMBER PROCEDURE append(value VARCHAR2)
MEMBER PROCEDURE append(value NUMBER)
MEMBER PROCEDURE append(value BOOLEAN)
MEMBER PROCEDURE append(value DATE)
MEMBER PROCEDURE append(value TIMESTAMP)
MEMBER PROCEDURE append_Null

Introspection Function

Introspection enables you to discover properties of the JSON array without modifying them.

MEMBER FUNCTION get_Type(pos NUMBER) RETURN VARCHAR2

Modification Procedure

The following procedure enables you to remove the value at the specified position in the JSON array.

MEMBER PROCEDURE remove(pos NUMBER)

Clone Function

This function makes a copy of the JSON array. Reference semantics is changed to value semantics.

MEMBER FUNCTION clone RETURN JSON_ARRAY_T

Description

A JSON_SCALAR_T instance captures one scalar values, for example, the string “fred” or the number 1. This type does not have any functions or procedures other than the ones inherited from JSON_ELEMENT_T. You cannot create an instance of this type directly.

Description

This type is used by the get_Keys function in the JSON_OBJECT_T Object Type.