A binary large object (BLOB) is a complex data type. Variables of this data type differ from normal numeric and string variables in that BLOBs have a variable length.

The maximum size of a BLOB is normally determined by your system's disk storage capacity. However, the maximum size in C/SIDE is 2 GB.

Remarks

Use BLOBs to store memos (text), pictures (bitmaps), or user-defined types.

Note
C/SIDE cannot display text stored in BLOBs.

You can read from and write to BLOBs by creating input and output streams, respectively. To do so, use CREATEINSTREAM Function (BLOB) and CREATEOUTSTREAM Function (BLOB).

For more information, see InStream and OutStream Data Types.

To optimize performance, when you access a record that has a BLOB field, the data in the BLOB is not always read into memory. To be sure that the BLOB data is in memory, you can call the CALCFIELDS Function (Record) on the BLOB to calculate the BLOB before you use it in C/AL or display it in the application.

It is not supported to insert a BLOB field into a Variant.

Differences Between the Classic Client and RoleTailored Client

In the Classic client, a control on a form can have a SourceExpr that specifies a BLOB field from a table other than the SourceTable for the form. In the RoleTailored client, this is not supported. One way to access a BLOB from a page in the RoleTailored client is to add a BLOB field to the SourceTable of the page and assign the BLOB field from the original table to the new field value.

Remarks

Differences Between the Classic Client and RoleTailored Client

See Also

Reference