REF is
a datatype in Oracle. It establishes a column object as a pointer to data in
another object table. The REF column itself does not hold the data. For example
CREATE TYPE dept_type AS
OBJECT (deptname VARCHAR2(24), deptnumber NUMBER);
CREATE TABLE dept_table OF
dept_type;
CREATE TABLE
emp (empname VARCHAR2(50), empnumber NUMBER, empdept REF
dept_type);
In the
relational table named emp, the column empdept is a REF column. It points to an
object of type dept_type
