Re: Using BLOBs with several DBMS

> My question is: how can i create a table with one BLOB field, in a DBMS 
> independent way?
>
> I am using PostgreSQL7.1 and Oracle 8 but I want to make it be able to work 
> with other DBMSs.

It is difficult, because:
 *  Different versions of SQL use different names for the BLOB type.
 *  Some DBMS don't support blobs at all.
 *  Some DBMS treat blobs differently to other SQL types and    require you to use special APIs to access them.
 *  Not all JDBC drivers support the JDBC 2.0 Blob APIs.  Of those    that do, many implement them in part only.

Given this mess, you've got two choices:
 *  Define a Java interface for all of your database interactions.      Create a different implementation for each DBMS
youplan to support,    complete with embedded SQL statements, table schemas, etc.
 
 *  Define wrapper classes for JDBC, and try to isolate the DBMS     differences in "adapters".  This (more or less)
allowsyou to    share SQL statements / table schemas across DBMS, but it is     kind of hard getting the wrapper /
adapterAPIs right.
 

-- Steve