Handle smart large objects

A smart large object can store text or images. Smart large objects are stored and retrieved in pieces and have database properties such as recovery and transaction rollback.

HCL OneDB™ supports two smart-large-object types:
  • The BLOB data type stores any type of binary data, including images and video clips.
  • The CLOB data type stores text such as PostScript™ or HTML files.

You can seek smart large objects in bytes but not in characters. Therefore, you need to manage the byte offset of multibyte characters when you search for information in smart large objects.

To access smart large objects through a client application, you must use an API, such as or DataBlade® API. Because GLS does not support direct access to smart-large-object data through SQL, GLS does not automatically handle the data (no automatic code-set conversion, localized collation order, display formats, and so on). All support must be done within an API.

When you copy CLOB data from a file, HCL OneDB performs any necessary character-set conversions. If the client (when it copies from client files) or server locale (when it copies from server files) differs from the database locale, invokes the routines to convert to the database locale.