Introduction to Arrays
Go Up to Working with Array Data
InterBase supports arrays of most data types. Using an array enables multiple data items to be stored in a single column. InterBase can treat an array as a single unit, or as a series of separate units, called slices. Using an array is appropriate when:
- The data items naturally form a set of the same data type.
- The entire set of data items in a single database column must be represented and controlled as a unit, as opposed to storing each item in a separate column.
- Each item must also be identified and accessed individually.
The data items in an array are called array elements. An array can contain elements of any InterBase data type except Blob, and cannot be an array of arrays. All of the elements of a particular array are of the same data type.
InterBase supports multi-dimensional arrays, arrays with 1 to 16 dimensions. Multi-dimensional arrays are stored in row-major order.
Array dimensions have a specific range of upper and lower boundaries, called subscripts. The array subscripts are defined when an array column is created. For information about creating an array, see the Language Reference Guide.