Oracle Stored Procedure and custom data type

Question

I have an Oracle stored procedure which takes two parameters: a custom data type and a string.

Calling the stored procedure in Oracle, I would do the following:

Answer 1

You can pass a custom datatype from C# to Oracle procedure only if this datatype is DB-defined. Have a look at this article, this should help you get started.

Answer 2

You won't be able to do this easily with the deprecated System.Data.OracleClient but you can utilize oracle's ODP with using UDTs. If that is not an option, I am unsure how you can do it via parameters in C# with System.Data.

ODP does come with a lot of examples and there are examples in the above links.

I am going to add some more links that will hopefully help:

1. visual studio ODP index
2. this shows you exactly how to utilize the ODT to create you custom class wrappers and call them (do note that this is midway through, they walk through using the tool to create the custom types above it in the example -- this walkthrough is quite thorough and should get you directly where you need to be)
3. Download: now this guy also installs sample files, this is another terrific example of exactly what you need to do: once installed goto [directory path you install]..\product\11.2.0\client_1\odp.net\samples\4\UDT\object1.cs

It really pays to allow the ODT tools for Visual studio to create your classes for your UDTs for you (e.g. IOracleCustomType and such) . you can then go into them and amend them to suit your needs. then once all is said and done (snippet from object1.cs):

    Person p1   = new Person();
p1.Name     = "John";
p1.Address  = "Address1";
p1.Age = 20;

// Establish a connection to Oracle
OracleConnection con = new OracleConnection(constr);
con.Open();

// Update Person object and insert it into a database table
OracleCommand cmd = new OracleCommand(sql1, con);
cmd.CommandType = CommandType.StoredProcedure;
OracleParameter param1 = new OracleParameter();

param1.OracleDbType   = OracleDbType.Object;
param1.Direction      = ParameterDirection.InputOutput;

// Note: The UdtTypeName is case-senstive
param1.UdtTypeName     = "SCOTT.ODP_OBJ1_SAMPLE_PERSON_TYPE";   
param1.Value           = p1;

cmd.Parameters.Add(param1);

also note that Person class must implement IOracleCustomType (which can be created by following the link in #2)

/* Person Class
   An instance of a Person class represents an ODP_OBJ1_SAMPLE_PERSON_TYPE object
   A custom type must implement INullable and IOracleCustomType interfaces
*/
public class Person : INullable, IOracleCustomType

The above is for a full custom type, but you are after an associative array ODP binding:

http://weblogs.asp.net/ricardoperes/archive/2009/05/14/odp-net-associative-arrays.aspx

you'll want to use

param1.CollectionType = OracleCollectionType.PLSQLAssociativeArray;

and everything should fall into place