Inserting Values into Opaque-Type Columns

HCL OneDB™ supports INSERT operations that specify literal values of opaque data types as quoted strings in the VALUES clause. You can use this syntax to insert values of opaque UDTs into columns of tables in the local database, or into columns of tables in other databases of the local instance.

Some opaque data types require special processing when they are inserted. For example, if an opaque data type contains spatial or multirepresentational data, it might provide a choice of how to store the data: inside the internal structure or, for large objects, in a smart large object.

This is accomplished by calling a user-defined support function called assign( ). When you execute INSERT on a table whose rows contains one of these opaque types, the database server automatically invokes the assign( ) function for the type. The assign( ) function can make the decision of how to store the data. For more information about the assign( ) support function, see HCL OneDB User-Defined Routines and Data Types Developer's Guide.