BYTE and TEXT Data Types

This section describes the Informix BYTE and TEXT data types and how to manipulate columns of these data types with the JDBC API.

The BYTE data type is a data type for a simple large object that stores any kind of data in an undifferentiated byte stream. Examples of this binary data include spreadsheets, digitized voice patterns, and video clips. The TEXT data type is a data type for a simple large object that stores any kind of text data. It can contain both single and multibyte characters.

Columns of either data type have a theoretical limit of 2³¹ bytes and a practical limit determined by your disk capacity.

For more detailed information about the Informix BYTE and TEXT data types, refer to IBM Informix: Guide to SQL Reference and IBM Informix: Guide to SQL Syntax. You can find the online version of both of these guides at http://www.ibm.com/software/data/informix/pubs/library/.