Re: Why all the max length constraints?

"Tony Andrews" <andrewst_at_onetel.com> wrote in message news:1149068068.812125.271120_at_h76g2000cwa.googlegroups.com...
> David Cressey wrote:
> > Excuse me, but I've never used the CLOB data type, so my memory of it
is
> > limited. Isn't there some kind of limitation on CLOBs such that you
can't
> > use them in the "where" clause, or something like that? If that's the
> > case, isn't it fair to treat CLOB as a "non relational Oracle
extension"?
>
> There certainly are restrictions - e.g. you can't use a CLOB column in
> the primary key. You can use them in the WHERE clause though. I was
> wrong to suggest that you could actually use a CLOB wherever you would
> normally have a VARCHAR. I have only very rarely used the CLOB type
> myself, so tend to be hazy on its restrictions until I actually look
> them up.
>

Thanks for this explanation. If you can't use them in the primary key, then that's enough for me to exclude them from what I'll call "the intersection between Oracle and the RDM". (I tend to use RDM instead of RM)

> > Also, wasn't Dawn's OP about whether there is anything about the RM
that
> > would lead implementors to impose such a restriction? That's slightly
> > different from asking whether there is something about SQL that would
lead
> > to the same thing.
>
> Yes, but in the text you quoted here I was responding to Dawn's latest
> post (which you also quoted) which *was* specifically about SQL.

Yep, you were right. Thread drift, like paint, covers a multitude of sins.

I tend to treat SQL, in practice, as though it were a "realization" of the RDM. It isn't. Occasionally, I get bitten. But not very often. Received on Wed May 31 2006 - 12:58:35 CEST