Not only is the boolean datatype missing in Oracle's SQL (not PL/SQL), but they also have no clear recommendation about what to use instead. See this thread on asktom. From recommending CHAR(1) 'Y'/'N' they switch to NUMBER(1) 0/1 when someone points out that 'Y'/'N' depends on the English language, while e.g. German programmers might use 'J'/'N' instead.

The worst thing is that they defend this stupid decision just like they defend the ''=NULL stupidity.

Nope.

Can use:

IS_COOL NUMBER(1,0)

1 - true
0 - false

--- enjoy Oracle

Or use char Y/N as described here

As per Ammoq and kupa's answers, We use number(1) with default of 0 and don't allow nulls.

here's an add column to demonstrate:

ALTER TABLE YourSchema.YourTable ADD (ColumnName NUMBER(1) DEFAULT 0 NOT NULL);

Hope this helps someone.

No, there isn't a boolean type in Oracle Database, but you can do this way:

You can put a check constraint on a column.

If your table hasn't a check column, you can add it:

ALTER TABLE table_name
ADD column_name_check char(1) DEFAULT '1';

When you add a register, by default this column get 1.

Here you put a check that limit the column value, just only put 1 or 0

ALTER TABLE table_name ADD
CONSTRAINT name_constraint 
column_name_check (ONOFF in ( '1', '0' ));

Not at the SQL level and that's a pity There is one in PLSQL though

No there doesn't exist type boolean,but instead of this you can you 1/0(type number),or 'Y'/'N'(type char),or 'true'/'false' (type varchar2).

There is a boolean type for use in pl/sql, but none that can be used as the data type of a column.

If you are using Java with Hibernate then using NUMBER(1,0) is the best approach. As you can see in here, this value is automatically translated to Boolean by Hibernate.

A common space-saving trick is storing boolean values as an Oracle CHAR, rather than NUMBER:

Just because nobody mentioned it yet: using RAW(1) also seems common practice.

DECLARE
error_flag  BOOLEAN := false;
BEGIN

error_flag := true;
--error_flag := 13;--expression is of wrong type

  IF error_flag THEN 

UPDATE table_a SET id= 8 WHERE id = 1;

END IF;
END;