At 10:29 AM 23-09-02 +0200, you wrote:

>So IBO reads subtype 0, 1 and <0?

Blob subtypes < 0 are blob filters, i.e. user defined. In order to exist,
they have to be developed and accessible in a dll or shared object (like a
UDF) and have to be declared to the database. It's the blob filter that
does the "stuff" to convert one binary format to another, e.g. output a
bitmap image as jpg or gif, convert an xml file to data (or vice-versa),
convert a Word document to plain text, etc. For IBO to "read" the output
of a blob filter, it has to have components that support that output type.

As for blob subtype 0, it doesn't know what to do with it, other than to
stream it. IBO doesn't recognise plain text in a subtype 0 blob as
text: for example, a fuzzy-text search won't work on such a column but
will work on subtype 1.

Helen