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RE: Storing photos - I'm looking for advice.

Posted in 2003

Topics: Stored Procedures & SPL, Data Types & Schema Design, Platform-Specific Issues

Colin Bull — — source: Usenet: comp.databases.informix

Fred Prose wrote > > We have a need to store photos with our application. While I know I > can use a blob for this data type I'm looking for alternative > suggestions for folks who have similar applications. > > We are a "fat client", Powerbuilder application, with AIX as the > Informix Server. > > One concept I had kicked around was to store a path (or hyperlink) > within a table and physically store the photo outside the actual > Informix database as a standard JPG file. We do a lot of database > exports and imports and blobs don't behave all that well - nor are > they performant in this scenario. > > One choice would be to use a NT server accessable to the clients and > have PowerBuilder access the NT system directly. > > A second choice would be to store the JPG on an AIX file system. I'm > not sure if PowerBuilder could touch this directly, but I had thought > you could shell the program to FTP the file? > > A third choice might be to have the client program call a database > stored procedure, passing the AIX path to the JPG, and have the stored > procedure return the blob. However, I'm not sure how I would "read" > the JPG into the Stored Procedure. How feasible do you think this is? > If you are thinking of sharing the JPG files, and SAMBA works on AIX it is very fast and Open Source. This will make the JPGs appear as a local drive to you apps when mounted. Colin Bull c.bull@videonetworks.com sending to informix-list

↪ replying to Colin Bull
Andrew Hamm — — source: Usenet: comp.databases.informix

Colin Bull wrote: > > If you are thinking of sharing the JPG files, and SAMBA works on AIX > it is very fast and Open Source. This will make the JPGs appear as a > local drive to you apps when mounted. Yup - modern Samba versions are very stable and powerful. I've just spent a few days on a customer site using a very old Samba, and it's .. ummm ... interesting? to see the improvements made over the years. Anyway, Samba is a great open source product and probably should be installed as a matter of course on every new UNIX build.