In this blog post series, we are looking at noteworthy enhancements to the Oracle Multitenant option of the Oracle Database in 12.1.0.2. In the previous post, we looked at “Full Database Caching”.
One more new feature in 12.1.0.2 is JSON support.
JSON, or JavaScript Object Notation data is being used worldwide to store unstructured and semi-structured data, with increasing volumes. As such, the data should be secure, reliable and available, as in relational databases like Oracle.
To affect this, the Oracle database can now store and index JSON data, and the JSON data can be queried. The database can ensure that JSON stored in the database conforms with the JSON rules.
JSON data can be queried using a PATH based notation. The database also has new operators that allow the integration of JSON PATH based queries into SQL operations.
As an example, this is a full-text query that finds sales invoice documents that contain "washable" in any of the part desciptions of the line items:
SELECT invoice_document FROM j_salesinvoices
WHERE json_textcontains(invoice_document, '$.LineItems.Part.Description', 'washable');
To use the json_textcontains condition, a JSON search index is required to be created initially. This is an Oracle Text index to be used specifically with JSON data.
For more details on this and other JSON specific features, please see the XML DB Developer's Guide here.