BLOB vs BFILE

Question

Dear Oracle Group,
Our applications are basically Client/Server and/or n-tier typical windows applications. The data is stored in Oracle 9i database on Solaris. Now..., I would like to store photographs and pdf documents in the database. I have read many documents on how to store jpegs and pdfs in Oracle database.
And I understand that I can store it in the database as a BLOB, BFILE or ORDSYS.OrdImage type column. But I have few problems here. My understanding is that, If I use BFILE or ORDSYS.OrdImage datatype, the image will be copied into the database server (Solaris), and we do not want the files to be copied into Solaris as an operating system file.
Please if you have any thoughts and/or samples share with me.
Thanks in advance,
Raja

Answer 1

Here is a C++ example using ORDImage
#include <iostream>
#include <fstream>
#include <occi.h>
#include <unistd.h>
#include <string>
using namespace oracle::occi;
using namespace std;
/* Buffer Size */
#define BUFSIZE 16384;
class occiImage
public:
string username;
string password;
string url;
void insertImageRow (Connection *conn, unsigned int id,
string descrip, string location, string fName)
throw (SQLException)
// Open input file to populate blob
ifstream inFile;
inFile.open(fName.data(), ios::in | ios::binary );
if (!inFile)
cout << fName; cout << " file not found\n";
return;
// Insert row into DB returning ID and blob to be populated
Statement *stmt = conn->createStatement
( "Insert into Photos t values \
(:v1, :v2, :v3, Ordimage.Init(), OrdImage.Init()) returning \
ROWID, t.image.getContent() into :v4, :v5");
stmt->setInt(1, id);
stmt->setString(2, descrip);
stmt->setString(3, location);
stmt->registerOutParam(4, OCCISTRING, 50);
stmt->registerOutParam(5, OCCIBLOB);
stmt->executeUpdate();
string rid = stmt->getString(4);
Blob blob = stmt->getBlob(5);
// Populate interMedia blob from file using stream interface
unsigned int bufsize=BUFSIZE;
char *buffer = new char[bufsize];
Stream *strm = blob.getStream();
while(inFile)
inFile.read((char *)buffer, bufsize);
strm->writeBuffer(buffer,inFile.gcount());
strm->writeLastBuffer(buffer, 0);
blob.closeStream(strm);
inFile.close();
delete[] buffer;
// In the same transaction, Set the image properties and create a thumbnail
stmt->setSQL
("DECLARE \
img ORDIMAGE; \
thumbnail ORDIMAGE; \
BEGIN \
select image, thumb into img, thumbnail from Photos \
where rowid = :v1 for update; \
img.setMimetype(:v2); \
BEGIN \
img.setProperties(); \
img.processCopy('fileFormat=JFIF maxScale=128 128', thumbnail); \
EXCEPTION WHEN OTHERS THEN thumbnail := NULL; \
END; \
update Photos set image=img, thumb=thumbnail where rowid = :v1; \
END;");
stmt->setString(1, rid);
// set default mime type based upon file Extension in
// case of setProperties failure (image/<FILE_EXTENSION>)
stmt->setString(2, "image/" + fName.substr(fName.find_last_of(".") + 1));
stmt->executeUpdate();
conn->commit();
conn->terminateStatement (stmt);
cout << "Populating and initializing the Image - Success" << endl;
return;
void writeThumbnailFile (Connection *conn, unsigned int id,
string fprefix)
throw (SQLException)
cout << "createStatement\n";
Statement *stmt = conn->createStatement
( "Select t.thumb.getContent(), t.thumb.getMimetype() from Photos t \
where t.id= :v1");
stmt->setInt(1, id);
ResultSet *rset = stmt->executeQuery ();
if (rset->next ())
Blob blob = rset->getBlob (1);
string mimeType = rset->getString(2);
string fName = fprefix + "." +
mimeType.substr(mimeType.find_last_of("/") + 1);
cout << "Output file name is " << fName << endl;
ofstream outFile;
outFile.open(fName.data() , ios::out | ios::binary);
if (!outFile)
cout << fName; cout << " file could not be created\n";
conn->terminateStatement (stmt);
return;
unsigned int bufsize=BUFSIZE;
char *buffer = new char[bufsize];
Stream *inStream = blob.getStream (1,0);
while (1)
int bytesRead = inStream->readBuffer(buffer, bufsize);
if (bytesRead < 0) break;
outFile.write(buffer, bytesRead);
blob.closeStream(inStream);
outFile.close();
delete[] buffer;
conn->commit();
conn->terminateStatement (stmt);
return;
occiImage ()
* default values of username & password
username = "scott";
password = "tiger";
url = "";
void setUsername (string u)
username = u;
void setPassword (string p)
password = p;
void setUrl (string u)
url = u;
void runImageSample ()
throw (SQLException)
Environment *env = Environment::createEnvironment (
Environment::DEFAULT);
Connection *conn = env->createConnection (username, password, url);
cout << "Start runImageSample\n";
insertImageRow (conn, 1, "picture", "somewhere", "image.dat");
writeThumbnailFile(conn, 1, "thumbnail");
env->terminateConnection (conn);
Environment::terminateEnvironment (env);
};//end of class occiImage
int main (void)
try
occiImage *i = new occiImage ();
i->setUsername ("scott");
i->setPassword ("tiger");
i->runImageSample ();
delete(i);
catch (exception &e)
cout << e.what();
}