sql - How to find if a value exists within a VARRAY

Question

I've created a VARRAY within a table (below) I would like to query whether or not a Title has a particular theme, eg. Show 'Action' games. I'm not to sure how to go about this...

CREATE OR REPLACE TYPE Theme_Game AS OBJECT
(Theme VARCHAR(20));
/ 
CREATE OR REPLACE TYPE Theme_Type AS VARRAY(3) OF Theme_Game;
/
CREATE OR REPLACE TYPE Game_Type AS OBJECT
(Title VARCHAR2(50),
GameTheme Theme_Type);
/
CREATE TABLE Game_Table of Game_Type
/
INSERT INTO Game_Table
VALUES('Star Wars' ,(Theme_Type(Theme_Game('Action'), Theme_Game('FPS'))))
/

Answer 1

You need to expose the nested table in the FROM clause using the table() function. You can then reference attributes of the collection:

SQL> select g.title
  2  from game_table g
  3       , table(g.gametheme) gt
  4  where gt.theme = 'Action';

TITLE
--------------------------------------------------
Star Wars

SQL> 

---

"what if I then needed to retrieve rows with multiple Themes i.e Action, FPS?"

Apologies for the clunky solution but I need to go to work now. I may post a more elegant solution later.

SQL> select * from game_table
  2  /

TITLE
--------------------------------------------------
GAMETHEME(THEME)
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Star Wars
THEME_TYPE(THEME_GAME('Action'), THEME_GAME('FPS'))

Uncharted 3
THEME_TYPE(THEME_GAME('Action'), THEME_GAME('Puzzle'))

Commander Cody
THEME_TYPE(THEME_GAME('Fun'), THEME_GAME('Puzzle'))


SQL> select g.title
  2  from game_table g
  3       , table(g.gametheme) gt
  4       , table(g.gametheme) gt1
  5  where gt.theme = 'Action'
  6  and gt1.theme = 'FPS' ;

TITLE
--------------------------------------------------
Star Wars

SQL> 

---

This alternative approach won't work with your current type because VARRAY does not support member of. But it would work if the collection was a Nested Table.

 select g.title
  from game_table g
  where  'Action' member of g.gametheme
  and 'FPS' member of g.gametheme