Version Column Generation Method

The collection metadata component that specifies the method used to compute version values for objects when they are inserted into a collection or replaced.

Property	Value
Default value	UUID. UUID, if either (1) database initialization parameter compatible is at least 20 or (2) your database is an Oracle Autonomous Database: Autonomous JSON Database (AJD), Autonomous Transaction Processing (ATP), or Autonomous Data Warehouse (ADW) SHA256, otherwise
Allowed values	UUID TIMESTAMP MD5 SHA256 SEQUENTIAL NONE
JSON collection metadata document path	versionColumn.method

Table 7-2 describes the version generation methods.

Table 2 Version Generation Methods

Method	Description
UUID	Ignoring object content, SODA generates a universally unique identifier (UUID) when the document is inserted and for every replace operation. Efficient, but the version changes even if the original and replacement documents have identical content. Version column type value is VARCHAR2(255).
TIMESTAMP	Ignoring object content, SODA generates a value from the time stamp and coverts it to LONG. This method might require a round trip to the database instance to get the time stamp. As with UUID, the version changes even if the original and replacement documents have identical content. Version column type value is NUMBER.
MD5	SODA uses the MD5 algorithm to compute a hash value of the document content. This method is less efficient than UUID, but the version changes only if the document content changes. Version column type value is VARCHAR2(255).
SHA256	SODA uses the SHA256 algorithm to compute a hash value of the document content. This method is less efficient than UUID, but the version changes only if the document content changes. Version column type value is VARCHAR2(255).
SEQUENTIAL	Ignoring object content, SODA assigns version 1 when the object is inserted and increments the version value every time the object is replaced. Version values are easily understood by human users, but the version changes even if the original and replacement documents have identical content. Version column type value is NUMBER.
NONE	If the version column is present, NONE means that the version is generated outside SODA (for example, by a database trigger).