RE: DATALINK (was: How can I store an externally generated PDF in afile or outq)

[CWilt@xxxxxxxxxxxx]

Dan,

Couple of things. 

With a BLOB, you'd have to pull it out of the DB and put it someplace for
the client to get to.  Unless you are working with client app that could
directly handle the info.  For example, say your BLOB is holding a JPEG.
Your web server could embed that JPEG into the stream it is sending to the
client.

Also, it doesn't seem to me that RPG handles DATALINKs very well (at all?).

HTH,
Charles



> -----Original Message-----
> From: Dan Bale [mailto:dbale@xxxxxxxxxxxxx]
> Sent: Friday, October 08, 2004 2:05 PM
> To: Midrange Systems Technical Discussion
> Subject: RE: DATALINK (was: How can I store an externally 
> generated PDF
> inafile or outq)
> 
> 
> Thanks Keith, that was along the lines that I was thinking 
> of, although I
> was having difficulty conceptualizing a 16MB field that a 
> BLOB could be!
> 
> The other difference I just thought of is that the same 
> DATALINK could be
> used by more than one record.  That couldn't be done with a 
> BLOB.  Although
> that starts to get into some data normalization issues I suppose.
> 
> Anyway, how does one choose between a BLOB and a DATALINK?  I already
> described how I see this being used to pop up photos, drawings, and
> signatures in a window via an F-key.  But the application 
> that we will have
> is to print reports (maybe produce PDFs?) that include these 
> graphics as
> well.
> 
> db
> 
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: midrange-l-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxx / Keith Carpenter
> > Sent: Friday, October 08, 2004 1:13 PM
> >
> > The main difference is where the data is stored.
> >
> > With a BLOB the data is considered stored in the row 
> (record).  Actually
> > it's probably some space object behind the scenes (there's 
> a 16 Mb size
> > limit). You can think of a BLOB as a very big data field.
> >
> > With a DATALINK the data is in the IFS or some remote 
> system and it's
> > referenced by URL instead.  Hence why it's called a link.  You
> > can think of
> > the field as containing the path to your stream file.
> >
> > A windows app could use ODBC to read your image db, then use the URL
> > w/access token to open the image file from the IFS.
> >
> >
> > Keith
> 
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