BLOB from database to Browser with out writing it out to a file.

I would like to be able to extract a BLOB from the database (Informix) and pass it to a browser without writing it to a file. (The BLOB's are word doc's, MS project doc's, and Excel spreadsheets. Is it is possible on Unix to designate a directory as a virtual directory, (i.e it only exist it memory), so that I can extract the file from the database, write it to the virtual directory and then pass it to the browser? Any other suggestions that would allow me to move a BLOB from an RDBMS directly to a browser?

Mitch wrote: > I would like to be able to extract a BLOB from the database (Informix) > and pass it to a browser without writing it to a file. (The BLOB's > are word doc's, MS project doc's, and Excel spreadsheets. > > Is it is possible on Unix to designate a directory as a virtual > directory, (i.e it only exist it memory), so that I can extract the > file from the database, write it to the virtual directory and then > pass it to the browser? > > Any other suggestions that would allow me to move a BLOB from an RDBMS > directly to a browser? Does the RDBMS provide a means of writing the BLOB to standard output? Heiner -- ___ _ / __| |_ _____ _____ _ _ Heiner STEVEN <heiner.steven@nexgo.de> \\__ \\ _/ -_) V / -_) ' \\ Shell Script Programmers: visit |___/\\__\\___|\\_/\\___|_||_| http://www.shelldorado.com/

In comp.unix.solaris Mitch <mitchell.miller@bankofamerica.com> wrote: > I would like to be able to extract a BLOB from the database (Informix) > and pass it to a browser without writing it to a file. (The BLOB's > are word doc's, MS project doc's, and Excel spreadsheets. Yes, it's called USING APACHE SERVER. Pass things around in XML if necessary. Care to spell out further what you're trying to accomplish? -am ' 2003

Mitch wrote: > I would like to be able to extract a BLOB from the database (Informix) > and pass it to a browser without writing it to a file. (The BLOB's > are word doc's, MS project doc's, and Excel spreadsheets. > > Is it is possible on Unix to designate a directory as a virtual > directory, (i.e it only exist it memory), so that I can extract the > file from the database, write it to the virtual directory and then > pass it to the browser? Yes, but this is by far the hardest way I can think of to solve your problem. You'd have to write a special kernel module just for your application. > Any other suggestions that would allow me to move a BLOB from an RDBMS > directly to a browser? Certainly. Just make that web page a CGI or JSP or any other page with dynamically-generated content. Spit out the appropriate Content-Type: header, newlines, etc., and then spit out the bits that you get from the BLOB. (Reading the BLOB in chunks is left as an exercise for you, since it depends on your database and the API you're using to access it.) By the way, since this is really a web issue, you might want to try a newsgroup more appropriate to the subject, like maybe comp.infosystems.www.authoring.cgi. Hope that helps. - Logan