In Oracle PL/SQL, the NVARCHAR2 data type is used to store variable-length Unicode character data of up to 4000 bytes in length. The NVARCHAR2 data type is similar to the VARCHAR2 data type, but it stores Unicode characters instead of ASCII characters. This makes it a more flexible and versatile data type for storing text data that needs to support a wide range of languages and character sets.
The NVARCHAR2 data type can be declared with a maximum length of up to 4000 bytes. This length specifies the maximum number of bytes that can be stored in the column or variable.
However, it is important to note that the actual number of characters that can be stored may be less than this maximum length, depending on the specific characters being stored. This is because Unicode characters can require more than one byte to store, depending on the specific character set and encoding used.
Syntax
To declare a variable or column as NVARCHAR2 data type in Oracle PL/SQL, the syntax is as follows:
variable_name NVARCHAR2(maximum_length);
Syntax
For example, to declare a variable called my_var as NVARCHAR2 with a maximum length of 100 characters, the following code can be used:
my_var NVARCHAR2(100);
The NVARCHAR2 data type is useful in situations where text data needs to be stored in a database but the character set and language requirements are unknown or could change. It can also be used to store multilingual data, such as names, addresses, and descriptions, that may contain characters from different languages.
In conclusion, the NVARCHAR2 data type in Oracle PL/SQL is a powerful tool for storing variable-length Unicode character data. It is useful for storing text data that needs to support a wide range of languages and character sets, and it can be declared with a maximum length of up to 4000 bytes.
