image

Q:
Hello,
We are going to design a database as the backend of our web-based database
question. The problem we are
facing is how to store the TIFF image. The framework of our system is as
follows:
Oracle9i database is in windows 2000 machine, and our linux server (Red
Hat 7.1) is installed with oracle9i client. We're going to use CGI/Perl to
do the application. We want to store the TIFF images in our database, but
it seems that the space requirement is huge. Could you give me some advice
how to store these images, using database or Linux filesystem? How to do
that? Is it difficult to use CGI programming retrieve the images?

Thank you very much!
*NAME-DELETED*

A:
*NAME-DELETED*,

you can use BLOB (that is Binary Large Object) to store TIFF images, or
you can store the images as plain text files on the web server and store
the name of the file in the database.

The issue to get or put the image into the database is not more difficult
than it is with any other value. Programmatically is almost the same, but
it is slower, because the file is bigger. On the other hand the file is
transferred through the network to the client , which is surely a slower
network than the network between the DB server and the web server.

I recommend that you do not use CGI for programs that need DB handlign
because CGI programs can not keep DB connections alive. Use mod_perl, or
PHP or something like that.

regards,
Peter