Re: Oracle9i: How to pull LOB data via SQL*Plus ?

"André Hartmann" <andrehartmann_at_hotmail.com> wrote in message news:<413f2f32$1_at_olaf.komtel.net>...
> > Rubbish. Of course it's a legitimate question if it elicits real
> information
> > about the fundamental business need. Unless of course you are stuck with a
> > client who thinks he knows everything, and simply wants you to implement
> > his already-decided-upon solution.
>
> Hey, I am just a developer here. I dont even know the name, the company or
> an email of the customer. I just get my tasks assigned by the management.

Who presumably (we hope) *do* know the name, the company and the email of the customer. Unless you are working inside of a sealed box, use the channels of communication that are available. No valid devlelopment ever took place inside a sealed box with no understanding of a customer's actual requirements.

> And my current task is what I have described in my original post. I am not
> responsible for the communication with the customer and I am not in the
> position to influence it.
>
> When I posted here, I was expecting something like "yes, it works.. namely
> this way..." or "no it doesnt work for this and that reason".

Come off it. You got told very early on in the piece that SQL Plus does not handle blobs, but that PL/SQL does. There's your answer.

>That would
> have been helpful,

That *was* helpful, because that was the answer you were given.

> not an esoteric discussion that seems off-topic in this
> group and that does not contribute to the solution of the current problem.

Au contraire. It's not an esoteric discussion. It drives right to the heart of providing a solution to this problem. Find out what the customer's actual requirements are, instead of just accepting a bunch of constraints that are imposed for no apparent rational reason, and you will better be able to meet them, and solve the *client's* actual problem.

> I feel that it is perfectly legitimate to ask whether a native client tool
> like SQL*PLus or something else shipped with the Oracle client can perform a
> BLOB fetch from the database to a local file without doing some programming
> in a compiled language or not.

Of course it's legitimate. And you got told, "No, SQL*Plus has no functionality for that, but PL/SQL does". *You* keep coming back here as though dissatisfied with that answer, so if some of us regulars care to comment about the underlying issues here, that's our privilege. And, who knows: maybe you could learn from it. But not if you dismiss it as an irritating esoteric waste of your valuable time, I suspect.

> Very often there are even two or more ways to
> accomplish a specific task and no-one raises the question "why". you just
> pick whats appropriate in your case.

The "why" is usually fundamental in working out what is actually "appropriate". One of the good things about this group is that most people here seem to instinctively know this, and won't just trot out a simplistic answer unless they *know* it to be valid (there are always exceptions, of course). And knowing requires asking.

HJR Received on Wed Sep 08 2004 - 20:43:48 CDT