ORA-02315: incorrect number of arguments for default constructor

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This is a rather trivial error that is raised when you forget to specify some attribute in the list of values that makes up the object constructor:

drop table test_tab cascade constraints;
drop type tab_column_type;
drop type column_type;

create or replace
type column_type as object (
col_name     varchar2(30),
col_comment  varchar2(4000)
);
/

create or replace type tab_column_type as table of column_type;
/

create table test_tab (
table_name        varchar2(30),
table_columns     tab_column_type)
nested table table_columns store as nested_tab return as value;

insert into test_tab
values ('TEST_TAB', tab_column_type(column_type('TABLE_NAME','name of table',0),
                              column_type('TABLE_COLUMNS','list of columns',0)));

ORA-02315: incorrect number of arguments for default constructor

Column_type object definition contains two attributes (COL_NAME and COL_COMMENT), however is specified three values inside the constructor (in red color the exceeding value).

It's enough to remove the exceeding values (or add the missing ones...) to make the statement work.

Addendum posted on june, 27.
As per Gary's comment, one can prevent ORA-02315 by means of a user-defined constructor (in green color) and this technique is available on all oracle version since 9iR2 (i didn't check on earlier releases):

drop table test_tab cascade constraints;
drop type tab_column_type;
drop type column_type;

create or replace
type column_type as object (
col_name     varchar2(30),
col_comment  varchar2(4000),
constructor function column_type(p_name VARCHAR2) return self as result);
/

create or replace type body column_type 
is
constructor function column_type(p_name VARCHAR2) return self as result 
is
    begin
        self.col_name := p_name;
        self.col_comment := null;
        return;
    end;
end;
/

create or replace type tab_column_type as table of column_type;
/

create table test_tab (
table_name        varchar2(30),
table_columns     tab_column_type)
nested table table_columns store as nested_tab return as value;


insert into test_tab
values ('TEST_TAB', tab_column_type(column_type('TABLE_NAME'),
                                 column_type('TABLE_COLUMNS')));

This time no ORA-02315 will be returned because the constructor inserts nulls into the COL_COMMENT attribute.
Note also that you can overload these constructors in case you want to allow a user to selectively populate attributes.
You can read more about this in the linked document.


See message translations for ORA-02315 and search additional resources.