Pictures can be queried from a relational database if they are image data collected as a BLOB data type and stored as a binary unit in the database management system with ODBC connections. BLOB image files available to include: .JPEG, .BMP, .GIF, and .PNG image formats. Pictures can be dragged and dropped from a query table to the request line, displayed as strings in columns in the Results and Table sections, or shown graphically in the bands of the Report section. Interactive Reporting dashboard developers can select images from Results sets, not just static images from the file system. Wherever applicable, computed items and some functionality, such as the group by clause in SQL, unions and outer joins, use the primary key column.
The following restrictions apply to BLOB images in Interactive Reporting:
The ODBC connection must use a server-defined join (see Metadata Definition: Joins).
BLOB images cannot be retrieved using a stored procedure.
It is not possible to determine the data type of an image in advance.
BLOB images cannot be used with the Process to Table feature.
BLOB images cannot be used with the Import SQL feature.
In the EPM Workspace if a user attempts to add a BLOB column to the filter, there is no popup message to indicate that the functionality is not supported
Text Wrap and Suppress Duplicates features cannot be applied to BLOB columns
If a BLOB column is placed in the Query section and processed in a pre 9.3 release Interactive Reporting document file, images are not backward compatible.
See also: