My Oracle Support Banner

Primary Note: Overview of Oracle Large Objects (BasicFiles LOBs and SecureFiles LOBs) (Doc ID 1490228.1)

Last updated on JUNE 13, 2023

Applies to:

Oracle Database Cloud Service - Version N/A and later
Oracle Database - Enterprise Edition - Version 8.1.7.0 and later
Oracle Database Cloud Schema Service - Version N/A and later
Oracle Database Exadata Express Cloud Service - Version N/A and later
Gen 1 Exadata Cloud at Customer (Oracle Exadata Database Cloud Machine) - Version N/A and later
Information in this document applies to any platform.

Purpose

LOBs, or Large OBjects, are Oracle's preferred way of handling and storing non-character data, such as mp3s, videos, pictures, etc., and long character data. Binary large objects, or BLOBs, and character large objects, or CLOBs, can store up to terabytes of data
The purpose of this document is to provide an overview of Oracle LOBs, and to attempt to explain what LOBs are, how and why to use them, and ways in which to manipulate LOB data.

This note is under development to improve the quality of the content.

Details

To view full details, sign in with your My Oracle Support account.

Don't have a My Oracle Support account? Click to get started!


In this Document
Purpose
Details
 BasicFile Large Objects LOBs
 LOB Types
 Attributes
 Storage Parameters
 In ROW Versus Out of ROW
 Why Use Large Objects?
 Introducing LOB Locators
 Restrictions on LOBs
 Examples of handling the LOBs
 Create Internal LOBs
 Manipulating Internal LOBS (BLOB, CLOB, NCLOB)
 Populating internal LOBs
 Reading from LOBs
 Managing LOBs
 Database Utilities for Loading Data into LOBs
 Managing Temporary LOBs
 Managing Temporary Tablespace for Temporary LOBs
 Changing Tablespace Storage for a LOB
 BFILEs
 SecureFiles
 What's New in Large Objects?
 Parameters for CREATE TABLE With SECUREFILE LOBs
 PL/SQL Packages for SecureFiles: Column Settings
 SECURE FILES MONITORING
 MIGRATING to SECUREFILES from BASICFILES
 SecureFiles Monitoring
 SecureFiles LOBs 12c Enhancements
 Enable PDML Operations on SecureFiles
 Oracle Data Pump: Support SecureFiles LOB as Default
 SecureFiles is the Default for LOB Storage
 SQL Apply Support for SecureFiles LOBs
 Troubleshooting LOBs
 Known Issues
 References
References

My Oracle Support provides customers with access to over a million knowledge articles and a vibrant support community of peers and Oracle experts.