If you have a whole-number counter, for example in a loop or record counter, consider using a datatype of PLS_INTEGER instead of INTEGER or NUMBER. When declaring an integer variable, PLS_INTEGER is the most efficient numeric datatype because its values require less storage than INTEGER or NUMBER values, which are represented internally as 22-byte Oracle numbers. Also, PLS_INTEGER operations use machine arithmetic, so they are faster than BINARY_INTEGER, INTEGER, or NUMBER operations, which use library arithmetic.