The LO handle

An LO handle is an opaque C data structure that identifies the location of the smart-large-object data in its sbspace. Because a smart large object is potentially very large, the database server stores only its LO handle in a database table; it can then use this LO handle to locate the actual data of the smart large object in the sbspace. This arrangement minimizes the table size.

Applications obtain the LO handle from the database and use it to locate the smart-large-object data and to open the smart large object for read and write operations. In Parts of a smart large object, the LO handle identifies the location of the actual employee image in the sbspace1_100 sbspace. You can store this LO handle in a database column to save this reference for future use.