Varrays were introduced in Oracle8i as a modified format of a nested table. The varray or variable size arrays are bounded and the persistent form of collection whose major operational features resemble nested tables. The varray declaration defines the limit of elements a varray can accommodate. The minimum bound of the index is 1, current bound is the total number of resident elements and maximum bound is the varray size. At any moment, the current bound cannot exceed the maximum bound.
Like nested tables, varrays can be created as database objects and can also be used in PL/SQL. Though the implementation is the same as a nested table, varray follow a different storage orientation than the nested tables. They are stored in line with their parent record as a raw value in the parent table. The inline storage mechanism no more needs a storage clause specification, unique identifier or separate storage table. For some exceptional situations when the varray exceeds 4 K data, Oracle follows...
