Re: [Firebird-devel] Setting blob values to a binary hex literal returns strange results (PSQL)

[Martijn T. (U. Productions) <m.t...@up...>]

Hi Jim,

Thanks for the message, but no, the application was requesting
a binary blob as binary, nothing more.


With regards,

Martijn Tonies
Upscene Productions
http://www.upscene.com

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I'm not going to promise that this is current, but here is what I think 
is happening.

Blobs have types assigned when they are created.  Blob types, by and 
large, are advisory, but if you ask to open a blob with a specific type, 
say "text", the system will attempt to find a blob filter from the 
blob's declared type to type requested.

This mechanism is used, for example, to pretty print BLR blobs.

If the blob was defined as generic binary and requested as text, the 
system will use a built-in blob filter to return the the blob as hex.  
Beats returning binary gook.

It's a pity the industry didn't pick up blob types.  There's a great 
deal more to the world that just "text" and "binary".