Using Nested Table variables / Collections in SQL inside PL/SQL blocks - oracle

Question

I first create an address_type object
CREATE TYPE address_type AS OBJECT
( line1 VARCHAR2(100)
, line2 VARCHAR2(100)
, line3 VARCHAR2(100)
, city VARCHAR2(50)
, state VARCHAR2(50)
, country VARCHAR2(50)
, zip VARCHAR2(10)
);
/
I create a nested table type of the above object.
CREATE TYPE address_table AS TABLE OF ADDRESS_TYPE;
/
I then create another object as follows:
CREATE TYPE telephone_number_type AS OBJECT
( country_code VARCHAR2(4)
, area_code VARCHAR2(10)
, phone_number VARCHAR2(10)
, extension VARCHAR2(10)
, number_type VARCHAR2(10)
);
/
And then I create a nested table type as follows:
CREATE TYPE telephone_number_table AS TABLE OF TELEPHONE_NUMBER_TYPE;
/
Now I create a table named person. Many of whose columns are not much useful in this question, except for the telephone_numbers column which is of nested table telephone_number_table type.
CREATE TABLE person
( personid INTEGER PRIMARY KEY
, fname VARCHAR2(50) NOT NULL
, mname VARCHAR2(50)
, lname VARCHAR2(50) NOT NULL
, email VARCHAR2(255) UNIQUE
, password VARCHAR2(255) NOT NULL
, birthdate DATE
, billing_address ADDRESS_TABLE
, delivery_address ADDRESS_TABLE
, telephone_numbers TELEPHONE_NUMBER_TABLE
, display_pic BLOB
, ts_registration TIMESTAMP
, ts_verification TIMESTAMP
, ts_last_updated TIMESTAMP
) NESTED TABLE billing_address STORE AS nt_billing_address
, NESTED TABLE delivery_address STORE AS nt_delivery_address
, NESTED TABLE telephone_numbers STORE AS nt_telephone_numbers
, LOB(display_pic) STORE AS SECUREFILE (
TABLESPACE users
ENABLE STORAGE IN ROW
CHUNK 4096
PCTVERSION 20
NOCACHE
NOLOGGING
COMPRESS HIGH
)
;
I then create a sequence for this:
CREATE SEQUENCE sq_personid;
To insert values into the person table I use an anonymous block as follows:
DECLARE
v_fname person.fname%TYPE := 'Yogeshwar';
v_mname person.mname%TYPE := '';
v_lname person.lname%TYPE := 'Rachcha';
v_email person.email%TYPE := 'yogeshrachcha#gmail.com';
v_password person.password%TYPE := 'mail_123';
v_birthdate person.birthdate%TYPE := TO_DATE('28-03-1987', 'DD-MM-YYYY');
v_telephone_numbers TELEPHONE_NUMBER_TABLE;
v_billing_address ADDRESS_TABLE;
v_delivery_address ADDRESS_TABLE;
BEGIN
v_telephone_numbers := TELEPHONE_NUMBER_TABLE
( TELEPHONE_NUMBER_TYPE('+91','22','123456','','Residence')
, TELEPHONE_NUMBER_TYPE('+91','22','456798','123','Office')
, TELEPHONE_NUMBER_TYPE('+91','','1234567890','','Mobile'));
v_billing_address := ADDRESS_TABLE (ADDRESS_TYPE ( 'Line 1', 'Line 2', 'Line 3', 'Mumbai', 'Maharashtra', 'India', '123456'));
v_delivery_address := ADDRESS_TABLE (ADDRESS_TYPE ( 'Line 1', 'Line 2', 'Line 3', 'Mumbai', 'Maharashtra', 'India', '123456'));
-- billing and delivery addresses are the same. These are not much importance in this question.
INSERT INTO person VALUES
( sq_personid.nextval
, v_fname
, v_mname
, v_lname
, v_email
, v_password
, v_birthdate
, v_billing_address
, v_delivery_address
, v_telephone_numbers
, NULL
, sysdate
, sysdate
, sysdate);
END;
Everything runs absolutely perfect till this point. Then in an anonymous block like the following, I try to create a nested table variable and use it in an SQL query:
DECLARE
TYPE t_country_codes IS TABLE OF VARCHAR2(4);
country_codes T_COUNTRY_CODES := T_COUNTRY_CODES('+1', '+44', '+91');
cc VARCHAR2(4);
BEGIN
FOR i IN (SELECT t.country_code
FROM person p
CROSS JOIN TABLE(p.telephone_numbers) t
WHERE t.country_code IN (SELECT COLUMN_VALUE -- I doubt the problem is with this SELECT statement.
FROM TABLE(country_codes))) LOOP
dbms_output.put_line(i.country_code);
END LOOP;
END;
/
I get this error:
ORA-06550: line 8, column 70:
PLS-00642: local collection types not allowed in SQL statements
ORA-06550: line 8, column 64:
PL/SQL: ORA-22905: cannot access rows from a non-nested table item

Answer 1

A nested table type can be declared either in SQL (via the CREATE TYPE statement like you did with the telephone_number_table type) or in PL/SQL (via the TYPE declaration on the DECLARE block). If you declare the type in PL/SQL, you cannot use an instance of the type in SQL. You would need to declare the type in SQL in order to use an instance of the type in SQL.

Answer 2

Please, try to move your "local" (from last block) collection definition to the schema level.
Also, this post can be helpful.