Converting Crystal Report BLOB to VARCHAR2

From: Tom Urbanowicz <tsu_at_landacorp.com>
Date: 11 Nov 2004 16:35:45 -0800
Message-ID: <6d63e629.0411111635.238dd3e1@posting.google.com>

We have a process by which Crystal and InfoMaker reports are registered and stored as BLOBs in an Oracle 8i (or higher) database. I have a process in which I convert the BLOB to a VARCHAR2 using dbms_lob.read and utl_raw.cast_to_varchar2.

Once in this datatype, I use INSTR to identify if a specific value exists in the newly-converted, intelligible string. For InfoMaker reports, this works great. However, for Crystal reports, the string is still in a useless, unintelligible format.

Has anyone encountered and solved this dilemna before--trying to convert a Crystal report (as a BLOB) into a meaningful VARCHAR2 string? Received on Thu Nov 11 2004 - 18:35:45 CST