1st normal form rule: In the relational model, a column of a table must contain a single unstructured value.
students
sid
name
class
telephone
enrollment
lname
fname
cno
major
1
Jones
Allan
2
555-1234
101
No
108
Yes
2
Smith
John
3
555-4321
105
No
3
Brown
Harry
2
555-1122
101
Yes
108
No
5
White
Edward
3
555-3344
102
No
105
No
In an object-relational database, the column values are no longer restricted by the first normal form rule.
Collection types include
TABLE: Nested tables are singly dimensioned, unbounded collections of homogeneous elements.
VARRAY: Varying length arrays like nested tables are also singly dimensioned collections of homogeneous elements.
However, when you store and retrieve a VARRAY, its element order is preserved.
Collection types provide several capabilities for the developers:
natural modeling of one-to-many relationships,
supporting aggregation as a type in the database, and