Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!snorkelwacker!apple!oracle!news From: corpspt@oracle.com ((Owner) Mary Winslow) Newsgroups: comp.databases Subject: Re: variable record length Summary: LONG datatypes in Oracle store images in variable length data Keywords: RDBMS, variable record length, images Message-ID: <1990Feb5.235042.25758@oracle.com> Date: 5 Feb 90 23:50:42 GMT References: <4qx80zz@unify.uucp> Sender: David E. Anderson Reply-To: danderso@oracle.com Distribution: usa Organization: Oracle Corporation, Belmont CA Lines: 57 In article <4qx80zz@unify.uucp> craig@unify.UUCP (Craig Isaacs) writes: >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 The Oracle LONG (implies automatic character translation will occur on transfer between ASCII and EBCIDIC machines) and LONG RAW (no translation is performed) data types can hold values up to 64k in length. An increase in these limits is under consideration. The VARCHAR and CHAR datatypes are limited to a maximum of 255 characters. An increase in this limit is under consideration. Notes: These are all variable length datatypes. The number of datafile bytes occupied by the data varies dynamically as the value is updated. The size in the column definition determines the maximum length the user allows for a value; it does not imply pre-allocation of bytes. The maximum length established in the declaration can be changed later using the ALTER TABLE MODIFY command. I have submitted an enhancement request to allow declarations without a size, which would imply the inherent maximum allowed for that datatype. (In case jkrueger@dgis.dtic.dla.mil (Jon) ever has to use Oracle :-)) Craig, I think we are describing similar functionality in our products... From what tim@okra.sybase.com says, I think Sybase has the same, as does Informix and (I think) Ingres. -David "Data, that's enough!" - Jean Luc Picard