[gihrig]

Shadow is right, MySQL does not use the term CLOB, it's TEXT in MySQL, but the concept is the same, as peterlaursen points out.

For the benefit of clarity, here is the reference on this from the MySQL docs:

See: http://dev.mysql.com/doc/mysql/en/blob.html for details.

From: 11.4.3. The BLOB and TEXT Types:

Quote:

The four TEXT types, TINYTEXT, TEXT, MEDIUMTEXT, and LONGTEXT, correspond to the four BLOB types and have the same maximum lengths and storage requirements.

BLOB columns are treated as binary strings (byte strings). TEXT columns are treated as non-binary strings (character strings). BLOB columns have no character set, and sorting and comparison is based on the numeric values of the bytes in column values. TEXT columns have a character set, and values are sorted and compared based on the collation of the character set assigned to the column …

When I said above:

Quote:

I understand that this behavior is by design and makes a certain degree of sense, since tinytext could hold binary data.

That was wrong, *TEXT does not hold binary data. But my suggestion to have a limited preview for text types, with a viewer/editor to handle longer column values seems even more appropriate, in light of the correct information. Just as a similar function to handle BLOB types in hex mode does (discussed in this thread)

In summary long data types *TEXT and *BLOB serve different purposes, it would be nice to have a viewer/editor scheme that fully supports the function of each.

-Glen

[gihrig]

Thanks very much for your replies.

I appreciate the distinction between BLOBs and CLOBs, I didn't get that from the MySQL docs (must have missed it).

I won't jump into the CLOB vs BLOB war 😉 I'll just add my “vote” for treating character objects as such regardless of size. Perhaps limiting the total number of characters displayed by default in the table data pane to a reasonable value, and then provide a viewer/editor pane to deal with larger numbers of characters than the default.

This works very well IMO in MS Access, where Shif-F2 opens an editor pane where you can edit character data too large to work with in the table data grid.

I guess I'll just put up with this until a) I have time to redesign the app. or b) I get so annoyed at not being able to see column contents without opening the viewer that I'm willing to change the table structure and see what breaks …

Thanks again for you input

-Glen

[Author]

Posts