Is the RAW type deprecated in Oracle?

Question

From what I've read, the preferred way to store a Java UUID in Oracle is in a RAW(16) column. When I suggested using this to my DBA, he commented that the RAW type was deprecated way back in Oracle 8i and provided this page as evidence. However, from what I see on that page, LONG RAW is deprecated, but not RAW. I've found a few places where others have raised similar questions, but have not found a definitive answer. There also seem to be numerous references to the RAW datatype in recent Oracle release notes which leads me to believe the type is still supported. Can anyone provide an authoritative answer on this, preferably one with proper evidence from Oracle?

Answer 1

RAW is fully supported and is the only way to store small amounts of binary data that will prevent Oracle from performing character set conversion.

LONG and LONG RAW are both deprecated in support of CLOB and BLOB data types.

It's hard to find documentation that says that something is not deprecated. This discussion of RAW and LONG RAW is probably the closest. It explicitly calls out the fact that LONG RAW should not be used but makes no similar point about RAW.