Meaning of STORE AS in nested table in PL/SQL

Question

I referred many examples of "Creating a SQL Type Corresponding to a PL/SQL Nested Table" such as

           CREATE TYPE CourseList AS TABLE OF VARCHAR2(64);
           CREATE TABLE department (
                name     VARCHAR2(20),
                director VARCHAR2(20),
                office   VARCHAR2(20),
                courses  CourseList) 
                NESTED TABLE courses STORE AS courses_tab;

I referred many materials regarding this but I am not getting what is purpose of storing courses into courses_tab. Where will this courses_tab use? Please help me.

Answer 1

courses_tab is used to name the physical table which stores the data for the nested table. You can find it by querying dba_nested_tables. The column table_name will have the value 'COURSES_TAB'. In addition, you can get the structure of the table by issuing the command DESC COURSES_TAB.