Database Reference
In-Depth Information
We also gave consideration to the legacy
LONG
and
LONG RAW
types, concentrating on how you might work around
their existence, as the functionality provided by these types falls far short of that provided by the LOB types. Next,
we looked at the datatypes capable of storing dates and times. We covered the basics of date arithmetic, a perplexing
issue until you've seen it demonstrated. Lastly, in the section on dates and timestamps, we looked at the
INTERVAL
type and how best to use it.
The most detailed part of the chapter from a physical storage perspective was the LOB section. The LOB type
is frequently misunderstood by developers and DBAs alike, so the bulk of the section was spent looking at how they
are physically implemented as well as certain performance considerations and the differences between SecureFiles
and BasicFiles.
The last datatype we looked at was the
ROWID
/
UROWID
type. For what now should be obvious reasons, you should
not use this datatype as a database column, since
ROWID
s are not immutable and no integrity constraints could enforce
the parent/child relationship. Rather, you want to store primary keys if you need to point to another row.
