Assigning Collections

Question

Hi,
I have a collection variable declared globally in a pl/sql package.
I have a local variable of the same collection type in a procedure within the same pkg. Inside this procedure I populate the local collection & before exiting the procedure I assign it to the global collection.
My question is when one collection is assigned to another collection will Oracle make a copy of the collection or will it just assign the pointer?
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create or erplace package body my_pkg is
type type_1d_array is table of varchar2(50);
type type_2d_array is table of type_1d_array index by binary_integer;
g2dArray type_2d_array;
procedure my_proc is
lv2dArray type_2d_array;
begin
-- perform some complex operations & populate lv2dArray
-- finally assign it to the global array
g2dArray := lv2dArray; -- will this cause the data to exist twice in memory?
end my_proc;
end my_pkg;
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Thanks in advance.
S.

Answer 1

The collection is indexed by binary integer. Hence doesn't have to be initialized.
When you said it will copy by 'default', did you mean there is an option to override the default behaviour? If so, how can I avoid making a copy? I know of NOCOPY but that is applicable only for input arguments to subprograms.
In my case, the lv2dArray will have about (500,000 x 10) values in it. And I don't want to have 2 copies of the same data.
But because the assignment is being done at the end of procedure, I think once the procedure exits it will destroy the local array & only global array will be present in memory. Then I needn't worry too much about it.
S.