Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!uunet!jarthur!elroy.jpl.nasa.gov!decwrl!ucbvax!ucdavis!csusac!unify!craig From: craig@unify.uucp (Craig Isaacs) Newsgroups: comp.databases Subject: Re: variable record length Summary: Variable length columns are important Keywords: RDBMS, variable record length Message-ID: <4qx80zz@unify.uucp> Date: 5 Feb 90 19:27:40 GMT References: Reply-To: craig@unify.UUCP (Craig Isaacs) Organization: Unify Corporation, Sacramento, CA, USA Lines: 25 In article <1990Jan31.040651.20590@oracle.com> you write: >I'm just an applications developer. I'm not a marketer and I'm not a >kernel developer, so I'm really not interested in the fancy names or >the theoretical schtick. I'm interested in what I can produce for >customers. > >Mind telling me what I could do with variable length columns that I >can't do with regular Oracle columns? > With variable width columns (UNIFY's "text" and "binary" field types) customers can store images, documents, etc... as part of their RDBMS so they can integrate their RDBMS applications with other technologies. For example, an human resource application could store not only the age, ss #, address, etc. of the employee, but also an image of the employee captured by video camera (or scanned photo). Regards, -- ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Craig Isaacs internet: craig@unify.UUCP Unify Corporation ...!{csusac,pyramid}!unify!craig