Chapter 16Large Objects
VARCHAR2 and CHAR datatypes are great for storing small amounts of data, but what if you need to store large amounts of data such as chapters of a book, an image of the book cover, or the complete book in PDF format? Oracle provides LOB (Large OBject) datatypes to work with these kinds of data. In this chapter we look at the different kinds of LOBs, ways to manipulate them using SQL and PL/SQL, the DBMS_LOB package, and performance considerations when working with LOBs, including the use of Oracle Text.
Introduction to Large Objects
First introduced in Oracle 8, large objects, or LOBs, provide a means to store, manipulate, and retrieve large amounts of text and binary data. Prior to Oracle 8, LONG and LONG RAW datatypes ...
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