Overview of PL/SQL Program Units

Note: This section provides an overview of bulk binds to help you decide if you should use them in your PL/SQL applications. For detailed information about using bulk binds, including ways to handle exceptions that occur in the middle of a bulk bind operation, see the PL/SQL User's Guide and Reference.

When to Use Bulk Binds

If you have scenarios like these in your applications, consider using bulk binds to improve performance.

DML Statements that Reference Collections The FORALL keyword can improve the performance of INSERT, UPDATE, or DELETE statements that reference collection elements.

For example, the following PL/SQL block increases the salary for employees whose manager's ID number is 7902, 7698, or 7839, both with and without using bulk binds:

DECLARE

TYPE Numlist IS VARRAY (100) OF NUMBER;

Id NUMLIST := NUMLIST(7902, 7698, 7839);

BEGIN

--Slower method, running the UPDATE statements within a regular loop FOR i IN Id.FIRST..Id.LAST LOOP

UPDATE Emp_tab SET Sal = 1.1 * Sal WHERE Mgr = Id(i);

END LOOP;

END;

Without the bulk bind, PL/SQL sends a SQL statement to the SQL engine for each employee that is updated, leading to context switches that hurt performance.

If you have a set of rows prepared in a PL/SQL table, you can bulk-insert or bulk-update the data using a loop like:

FORALL i in Emp_Data.FIRST..Emp_Data.LAST

INSERT INTO Emp_tab VALUES(Emp_Data(i));

7-18 Oracle Database Application Developer's Guide - Fundamentals

Overview of PL/SQL Program Units

SELECT Statements that Reference Collections The BULK COLLECT INTO clause can improve the performance of queries that reference collections.

For example, the following PL/SQL block queries multiple values into PL/SQL tables, both with and without bulk binds:

--Find all employees whose manager's ID number is 7698. DECLARE

TYPE Var_tab IS TABLE OF VARCHAR2(20) INDEX BY BINARY_INTEGER; Empno VAR_TAB;

Ename VAR_TAB; Counter NUMBER; CURSOR C IS

SELECT Empno, Ename FROM Emp_tab WHERE Mgr = 7698;

BEGIN

--Efficient method, using a bulk bind

SELECT Empno, Ename BULK COLLECT INTO Empno, Ename

FROM Emp_Tab WHERE Mgr = 7698;

--Slower method, assigning each collection element within a loop.

counter := 1; FOR rec IN C LOOP

Empno(Counter) := rec.Empno; Ename(Counter) := rec.Ename; Counter := Counter + 1;

END LOOP;

END;

You can use BULK COLLECT INTO with tables of scalar values, or tables of %TYPE values.

Without the bulk bind, PL/SQL sends a SQL statement to the SQL engine for each employee that is selected, leading to context switches that hurt performance.

FOR Loops that Reference Collections and the Returning Into Clause You can use the

FORALL keyword along with the BULK COLLECT INTO keywords to improve the performance of FOR loops that reference collections and return DML.

For example, the following PL/SQL block updates the EMP_TAB table by computing bonuses for a collection of employees; then it returns the bonuses in a column called Bonlist. The actions are performed both with and without using bulk binds:

Using Procedures and Packages 7-19