ORALONG.EXE: Use RDO with Oracle LONG/LONG RAW Datatypes

ID: Q178875

The information in this article applies to:

Microsoft Visual Basic Enterprise Edition for Windows, versions 5.0, 6.0
Microsoft Data Access Components version 2.1 SP2

SUMMARY

The "Working with LONG, LONG RAW and VARCHAR2(2000) Oracle Datatypes" white paper is intended to clarify the handling of the Oracle datatypes LONG, LONG RAW and VARCHAR2(2000) when they are used with Microsoft Visual Basic and Remote Data Objects (RDO). A sample project is attached that illustrates storing and retrieving these datatypes. The project uses straight Visual Basic 5.0 RDO code to store and retrieve this data as well as using stored procedures.

NOTE: It is not recommended to store BLOB or Long Text data in a table. A more efficient way is to store file pointers in the table that will locate the actual files. Other Microsoft white papers go into detail on this method.

MORE INFORMATION

The following files are available for download from the Microsoft Download Center. Click the file names below to download the files:

Oralong.exe

For more information about how to download files from the Microsoft Download Center, please visit the Download Center at the following Web address

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/search.asp

and then click How to use the Microsoft Download Center.
OraLong.exe is a self-extracting file that will, after execution, produce a Microsoft WORD 7.0 document (Ora_Long.DOC), an HTML document (Ora_Long.HTM) and a Microsoft Visual Basic 5.0 project named Oracle_Long.VPB. The document thoroughly describes the Visual Basic application included and gives pointers about using Oracle LONG, LONG RAW and VARCHAR(2000) datatypes.

Also included in the file list is a .txt file named Ora_Long.OSP that has all the Oracle PL/SQL scripts necessary to support the Visual Basic application. Run Ora_Long.OSP from Oracle SQL*PLUS to create the table and stored procedures on your Oracle server.

After downloading OraLong.exe, place it in a new folder and run the file to extract the supporting files for this white paper.

In addition to Visual Basic, you will need to have MDAC installed.

For additional information about acquiring and installing MDAC, please see the following article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base:

Q175018 : HOWTO: Acquire and Install the Microsoft Oracle ODBC Driver

Additional query words: oracle long raw

Keywords : kbfile kbDatabase kbVBp500 kbVBp600 kbGrpVBDB kbGrpMDAC kbDSupport kbADO210sp2 kbMDAC210SP2
Version : WINDOWS:2.1 SP2,5.0,6.0
Platform : WINDOWS
Issue type : kbinfo