Binary BLOB storage
Binary BLOB storage
(OP)
Hi!
Anybody knows the way Interbase stores its binary BLOBs? Does it store the binary data itself or only points to a DB-outside storage place?
Anybody knows the way Interbase stores its binary BLOBs? Does it store the binary data itself or only points to a DB-outside storage place?
RE: Binary BLOB storage
All data is stored inside the datafile (database). In each row with a BLOB value, a pointer to the actual blob is stored. If you retrieve the BLOB (via components or whatever), InterBase fetches the blob stream by following the pointer.
The pointer means that a blob is not stored "inline" - at the same data-page as the rest of the row(s). So you can easily have a lot of blobs per table and as long as you don't retrieve them, it won't harm speed fetching data from disk...
Martijn Tonies
InterBase Workbench - the developer tool for InterBase and Firebird
http://www.interbaseworkbench.com