Associative Array with more than one field - retrieving as output parameter

Question

Hello,
I'm developing an C# Application that is showing a datagrid with results from a PL/SQL procedure inside a Package.
The .net project is in .net 4 and the DB is an oracle 10g.
I have read the odp.net sample about the associative array. I could successfully pass as an input parameter a string[] and dealing with it inside my PL/SQL procedure.
Now it become more complex to me because I would like to return an associative array defined like this :
TYPE r_FinalExtract IS RECORD
RecordmyTable myTable%ROWTYPE,
Tel1 varchar2(25),
Tel1Libelle varchar2(50),
Tel2 varchar2(25),
Tel2Libelle varchar2(50),
Tel3 varchar2(25),
Tel3Libelle varchar2(50),
Tel4 varchar2(25),
Tel4Libelle varchar2(50),
Tel5 varchar2(25),
Tel5Libelle varchar2(50),
Email1 varchar2(50),
Email1Libelle varchar2(50),
Email2 varchar2(50),
Email2Libelle varchar2(50)
TYPE t_FinalExtract IS TABLE OF r_FinalExtract INDEX BY BINARY_INTEGER;
You can guess my PL/SQL stored procedure is filling this collection.
The spec of my procedure :
PROCEDURE P_SELECTDATA( ptab_ListRef IN t_AssocArrayVarchar2, ptab_Result OUT t_FinalExtract );
Unfortunately, in my .net project, I don't know how to deal with that.
I tryed to add p_Result as an output parameter but you have to define the OracleCollectionType for that parameter and the array type is not the good one because my t_FinalExtract is not a simple array...
I searched over the internet and the only one thread I could find is someone who was doing like me... and finally reply to his own thread 3 months later and said that he had to create CSV lines and return a table of varchar2...
This is what I will do because I'm loosing time for finding the way to do it with my associative array, but if someone has the solution I would be glad to read it.
Thanks in advance.

Answer 1

For PL/SQL records, I would recommend using User-Defined Types (UDTs), rather than associative arrays.
You can read more on how to use ODP.NET UDTs here:
http://docs.oracle.com/cd/E20434_01/doc/win.112/e23174/featUDTs.htm#CJAGCAID
Strictly speaking, ODP.NET doesn't support PL/SQL Records per se. Instead, ODP.NET supports building any generic UDT in the Oracle DB, which covers the effective functionality of a Record.
If you want to walk through the process of taking a sample DB UDT, generating a .NET custom class, then passing an instance between DB and application, here's a tutorial that shows you how to do that:
http://www.oracle.com/webfolder/technetwork/tutorials/obe/db/dotnet/userdefinedtypes/userDefinedTypes.htm