How do you read blobs?

[Irreverent]

Is there an easy way? I'm a cobol programmer, so i understand the smushed-txt/number field that you read into a copybook. But didn't know if there was an easy way to get the definition. Reading it in hex, binary, or epcidic doesn't bother me. i'm a geek

[sfisque]

depends. blobs are merely serialized data. what the actual struct looks like is completely external to the database (except in the case where the blob is manipulated by stored procedures, but we dont use any AFAIK). you'll have to crawl through the .h and .c/cpp files to find the code that parses the blob into its constituent fragments.

there might be something in the wiki that describes a given blob and what data is at what offset into it, but you'll have to search for it.

== sfisque

[GeorgeS]

Each language has it's own way of dealing with BLOBS. VB6 for example handles these fine. You have to make a text/binary parser to extract the info after you get it from the database. As mentioned, you will have to look at the .cpp file to figure out what's in the file byte by byte

GeorgeS

[Irreverent]

Thanks, I'm just convinced there is something in here that isn't getting stored or at least read correctly that's making helms or face choices not be transmitted correctly.(or saved).