Data Display: Large Objects

Studio supports multiple view options for the SQL-99 data types "Blobs" and "Clobs".

There are three embedded viewers: Plain Text, Hex, and Image.

"Blobs" (Binary Large Object) and "Clobs" (Character Large Object) are large data types supported in SQL. These are of special interest to developers of web applications (PHP)-particularly where images or other large data files are going to be recovered from the database.

For example, in a web site designed for a Real Estate company, you may want to show high-resolution pictures of houses for sale. These image files can be huge. SQL allows for efficient storage of images in the database - Blobs and Clobs - in a way that makes it possible for the application or user to access them efficiently. This impacts directly on the user experience of the web site.