%TYPE

This example was tested on Oracle 11.2. It shows how you can use %TYPE to create a variable like another variable. In this example, a variable called MAX_OBJ_ID is defined like OBJECT_ID from DBA_OBJECTS. Then SELECT INTO is used to select the maximum value of OBJECT_ID into it and the result is displayed:

SQL> SET SERVEROUTPUT ON

SQL> DECLARE

  2   MAX_OBJ_ID DBA_OBJECTS.OBJECT_ID%TYPE;

  3  BEGIN

  4   SELECT MAX(OBJECT_ID)

  5    INTO MAX_OBJ_ID

  6    FROM DBA_OBJECTS;

  7   DBMS_OUTPUT.PUT_LINE('MAX_OBJ_ID = '||MAX_OBJ_ID);

  8  END;

  9  /

MAX_OBJ_ID = 132369

PL/SQL procedure successfully completed.

SQL>

Finally, the same result is obtained in SQL*Plus:

SQL> SELECT MAX(OBJECT_ID) FROM DBA_OBJECTS

  2  /

MAX(OBJECT_ID)

--------------

        132369

SQL>