# BLOB

A BLOB (binary large object) is a varying-length binary string that can be up to 2,147,483,647 characters long. Like other binary types, BLOB strings are not associated with a code page. In addition, BLOB strings do not hold character data.

The length is given in bytes for BLOB unless one of the suffixes K, M, or G is given, relating to the multiples of 1024, 1024*1024, 1024*1024*1024 respectively.

Note: Length is specified in bytes for BLOB.

#### Syntax

    { BLOB | BINARY LARGE OBJECT } [ ( length [{K |M |G }] ) ]

#### Default

A BLOB without a specified length is defaulted to two gigabytes (2,147,483,647).

#### Corresponding compile-time Java type

java.sql.Blob

#### JDBC metadata type (java.sql.Types)

BLOB

Use the getBlob method on the java.sql.ResultSet to retrieve a BLOB handle to the underlying data.

#### Related information

see java.sql.Blob and java.sql.Clob

    create table pictures(name varchar(32) not null primary key, pic blob(16M));

    --find all logotype pictures
    select length(pic), name from pictures where name like '%logo%';

    --find all image doubles (blob comparsions)
    select a.name as double_one, b.name as double_two
    from pictures as a, pictures as b
    where a.name < b.name
    and a.pic = b.pic
    order by 1,2;

Parent topic: Data types
Related concepts
Built-In type overview
Numeric types
Related reference
Data type assignments and comparison, sorting, and ordering
BIGINT
CHAR
CHAR FOR BIT DATA
CLOB
DATE
DECIMAL
DOUBLE
DOUBLE PRECISION
FLOAT
INTEGER
LONG VARCHAR
LONG VARCHAR FOR BIT DATA
NUMERIC
REAL
SMALLINT
TIME
TIMESTAMP
VARCHAR
VARCHAR FOR BIT DATA
XML data type