TO_CLOB (bfile|blob)

Syntax

Description of the illustration to_clob_bfile_blob.eps

Purpose

TO_CLOB (bfile|blob) converts BFILE or BLOB data to the database character set and returns the data as a CLOB value.

For csid, specify the character set ID of the BFILE or BLOB data. If the character set of the BFILE or BLOB data is the database character set, then you can specify a value of 0 for csid, or omit csid altogether.

For mime_type, specify the MIME type to be set on the CLOB value returned by this function. If you omit mime_type, then a MIME type will not be set on the CLOB value.

See Also:

Appendix C in Oracle Database Globalization Support Guide for the collation derivation rules, which define the collation assigned to the character return value of this function

Example

The following hypothetical example returns the CLOB of a BFILE column value docu in table media_tab, which uses the character set with ID 873. It sets the MIME type to text/xml for the resulting CLOB.

SELECT TO_CLOB(docu, 873, 'text/xml') FROM media_tab;