BLOB data type

BLOB stands for Binary Large Object. This topic describes how to use the BLOB data type.

Considerations

The BLOB data type is used to store large binary objects in the database. A BLOB object is a stream of bits without character set semantics. The maximum length of binary data stored in a BLOB column is 536870910 bytes, and the character set is BINARY.

In the database, large files such as images, files, and music are stored in BLOB columns. The large files are converted to binary data before they are stored.

The BLOB data type supports complete transaction features. Changes made by using SQL or the DBMS_LOB package are part of the transaction and can be committed or rolled back. However, you cannot save a BLOB locator in PL/SQL in one transaction and use it in another transaction or session.

Examples

Create a blob_tbl table and set the blob_col column to the BLOB data type.

obclient> CREATE TABLE blob_tbl (blob_col BLOB);
Query OK, 0 rows affected