At 12:24 PM 5/7/00 -0400, dcalford wrote:

>I still prefer the method where you can cast the blob into an array of
>(byte|smallint|integer|int64|char|widchar|etc) and access the blob element by
>element.
>You can manipulate any type of blob within the engine at that point or even
>write a type of blob filter within a stored procedure.
>If you do this with strings as well, you could write in SP code any string
>function you want.

The question is whether it makes more sense to build (or plug) the
semantics into the data definition and engine where it can be
intelligently used by various subsystem, or require every reference
in every store procedure, trigger, and application code to make
a hard reference to the type.

If you back and take a look at embedded GDML, designed to avoid
the problems of hard coding types and lengths into host programs,
and contracting that with the pain and suffering induced by
either embedded SQL or dynamic SQL, I think you will see the
benefits.

Jim Starkey