13 Operations Specific to Persistent and Temporary LOBs

This chapter discusses LOB operations that differ between persistent and temporary LOB instances. This chapter contains these topics:

Persistent LOB Operations
Temporary LOB Operations
Creating Persistent and Temporary LOBs in PL/SQL
Freeing Temporary LOBs in OCI

Persistent LOB Operations

This section describes operations that apply only to persistent LOBs.

Inserting a LOB into a Table

You can insert LOB instances into persistent LOB columns using any of the methods described in Chapter 9, "DDL and DML Statements with LOBs".

Selecting a LOB from a Table

You can select a persistent LOB from a table just as you would any other datatype. In the following example, persistent LOB instances of different types are selected into PL/SQL variables.

declare
  blob1 BLOB;
  blob2 BLOB;
  clob1 CLOB;
  nclob1 NCLOB;
BEGIN
  SELECT ad_photo INTO blob1 FROM print_media WHERE Product_id = 2268 
        FOR UPDATE;
  SELECT ad_photo INTO blob2 FROM print_media WHERE Product_id = 3106;

  SELECT ad_sourcetext INTO clob1 FROM Print_media
      WHERE product_id=3106 and ad_id=13001 FOR UPDATE;

  SELECT ad_fltextn INTO nclob1 FROM Print_media
      WHERE product_id=3060 and ad_id=11001 FOR UPDATE;

END;
/
show errors;

Temporary LOB Operations

This section describes operations that apply only to temporary LOB instances.

Creating and Freeing a Temporary LOB

To create a temporary LOB instance, you must declare a variable of the given LOB datatype and pass the variable to the CREATETEMPORARY API. The temporary LOB instance will exist in your application until it goes out of scope, your session terminates, or you explicitly free the instance. Freeing a temporary LOB instance is recommended to free system resources.

The following example demonstrates how to create and free a temporary LOB in the PL/SQL environment using the DBMS_LOB package.

declare
  blob1 BLOB;
  blob2 BLOB;
  clob1 CLOB;
  nclob1 NCLOB;
BEGIN
  -- create temp LOBs
  DBMS_LOB.CREATETEMPORARY(blob1,TRUE, DBMS_LOB.SESSION);
  DBMS_LOB.CREATETEMPORARY(blob2,TRUE, DBMS_LOB.SESSION);
  DBMS_LOB.CREATETEMPORARY(clob1,TRUE, DBMS_LOB.SESSION);
  DBMS_LOB.CREATETEMPORARY(nclob1,TRUE, DBMS_LOB.SESSION);

  -- fill with data
  writeDataToLOB_proc(blob1);
  writeDataToLOB_proc(blob2);

  -- CHAR->LOB conversion
  clob1 := 'abcde';
  nclob1 := TO_NCLOB(clob1);

  -- Other APIs
  call_lob_apis(blob1, blob2, clob1, nclob1);

  -- free temp LOBs
  DBMS_LOB.FREETEMPORARY(blob1);
  DBMS_LOB.FREETEMPORARY(blob2);
  DBMS_LOB.FREETEMPORARY(clob1);
  DBMS_LOB.FREETEMPORARY(nclob1);

END;
/
show errors;

Creating Persistent and Temporary LOBs in PL/SQL

The code example that follows illustrates how to create persistent and temporary LOBs in PL/SQL. This code is in the demonstration file:

$ORACLE_HOME/rdbms/demo/lobs/plsql/lobdemo.sql

This demonstration file also calls procedures in separate PL/SQL files that illustrate usage of other LOB APIs. For a list of these files and links to more information about related LOB APIs, see "PL/SQL LOB Demonstration Files".

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
-------------------------  Persistent LOB operations ------------------------
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

declare
  blob1 BLOB;
  blob2 BLOB;
  clob1 CLOB;
  nclob1 NCLOB;
BEGIN
  SELECT ad_photo INTO blob1 FROM print_media WHERE Product_id = 2268 
        FOR UPDATE;
  SELECT ad_photo INTO blob2 FROM print_media WHERE Product_id = 3106;

  SELECT ad_sourcetext INTO clob1 FROM Print_media
      WHERE product_id=3106 and ad_id=13001 FOR UPDATE;

  SELECT ad_fltextn INTO nclob1 FROM Print_media
      WHERE product_id=3060 and ad_id=11001 FOR UPDATE;

  call_lob_apis(blob1, blob2, clob1, nclob1);
  rollback;
END;
/
show errors;

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
-------------------------  Temporary LOB operations ------------------------
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

declare
  blob1 BLOB;
  blob2 BLOB;
  clob1 CLOB;
  nclob1 NCLOB;
BEGIN
  -- create temp LOBs
  DBMS_LOB.CREATETEMPORARY(blob1,TRUE, DBMS_LOB.SESSION);
  DBMS_LOB.CREATETEMPORARY(blob2,TRUE, DBMS_LOB.SESSION);
  DBMS_LOB.CREATETEMPORARY(clob1,TRUE, DBMS_LOB.SESSION);
  DBMS_LOB.CREATETEMPORARY(nclob1,TRUE, DBMS_LOB.SESSION);

  -- fill with data
  writeDataToLOB_proc(blob1);
  writeDataToLOB_proc(blob2);

  -- CHAR->LOB conversion
  clob1 := 'abcde';
  nclob1 := TO_NCLOB(clob1);

  -- Other APIs
  call_lob_apis(blob1, blob2, clob1, nclob1);

  -- free temp LOBs
  DBMS_LOB.FREETEMPORARY(blob1);
  DBMS_LOB.FREETEMPORARY(blob2);
  DBMS_LOB.FREETEMPORARY(clob1);
  DBMS_LOB.FREETEMPORARY(nclob1);

END;
/
show errors;

Freeing Temporary LOBs in OCI

Any time that your OCI program obtains a LOB locator from SQL or PL/SQL, check that the locator is temporary. If it is, free the locator when your application is finished with it. The locator can be from a define during a select or an out bind. A temporary LOB duration is always upgraded to session when it is shipped to the client side. The application needs to do the following before the locator is overwritten by the locator of the next row:

OCILobIsTemporary(env, err, locator, is_temporary);
if(is_temporary)
    OCILobFreeTemporary(svc, err, locator);