QuerySurge and BLOB Data

The BLOB Data Type - Binary Large OBjects

Most database and data store products have a data type for storing large binary objects, often called BLOBs (Binary Large OBject). These objects are typically 2 GB of binary data or more, depending on the specific data technology you are using. Obviously, a resultset with even a single column of BLOBs may represent a significantly large data payload, and a resultset with multiple BLOB columns may represent an extremely large payload.

Note: Your specific technology may use a different term for this data type. For example, Oracle calls this type a BLOB, while in SQL Server, it is an IMAGE type.

QuerySurge and BLOBs

QuerySurge handles data typing by checking query data types from the query metadata for each of the columns in your queries. So, if you have a BLOB column in a table, it will be typed as a BLOB by QuerySurge because the metadata will indicate that it is a BLOB. When your query returns a BLOB column, instead of pushing the entire data set to your browser, which may have significant negative network and/or browser impacts (it could be ≥ 2GB of data per row), QuerySurge simply shows you a "{blob}" notation when you view your data:

It is important to note that, when QuerySurge shows you the "{blob}" notation, your data exists in QuerySurge and is available, and the QuerySurge comparison has run on your data. You can see BLOB data cell-by-cell, by choosing a cell in your data popup, and right-clicking on it. You'll see a context menu that lets you save the data to a file:

This option, again, only lets you save the data cell-by-cell, to avoid unacceptably large downloads, both in terms of effects on your network and on browser memory.

Note: Because BLOB columns are simply bytes as far as QuerySurge is concerned, so QuerySurge will not know the file type involved. Since any type of data may be a BLOB, including image data (e.g., .png, .jpg, .gif, .tiff, .bmp files), text data, or other file data (e.g. MS Word .docx files or Excel .xlsx files, etc.), you may need to determine the data type you are dealing with, and save it with an appropriate file extension in order for your OS to recognize the file.