Oracle Essentials [Electronic resources] : Oracle Database 10g, 3rd Edition نسخه متنی

Chapter 13. Extending Oracle Datatypes

You can use traditional datatypes, such as those described in Chapter
4, to represent a portion of the information that your organization
needs to store and manage. Introduction of the XML datatype
(described in Chapter 4) and XML features
(described in Chapter 14) have extended Oracle to
also function as an "XML database."
Oracle also provides datatypes that are specifically designed to
provide optimal storage, performance, and flexibility for other
specific types of data; these datatypes are the focus of this
chapter.

Real-world information used in business, such as purchase orders,
claims forms, shipping forms, and so on, may sometimes be best
represented as object types, which are more complex than the simple
atomic datatypes discussed in Chapter 4. Data that includes a
timestamp may be better manipulated as a time series.
Location-oriented data may best be represented using spatial
coordinates. Documents, images, video clips, and audio clips have
their own special requirements for storage and retrieval.

Oracle has extended the functionality of its basic relational
database engine to support the storage and manipulation of these
nontraditional datatypes through the introduction of additional
features and options. Oracle has also extended the types of data, the
SQL that manipulates it, and the basic Oracle service framework so
that you can modify the data and extend its capabilities even
further.