What is org.springframework.orm.hibernate3.support.BlobByteArrayType good for?

Question

What is org.springframework.orm.hibernate3.support.BlobByteArrayType good for?
Why not map a byte[] as the Hibernate basic type "binary"?

What are the differences? When to use which?

Thanks!

Answer 1

The BlobByteArrayType lets you map arbitrary byte array into a Blob field in the database. The binary type of hibernate allows you to map a byte array into a varbinary field.

In MySQL, Blob is very similar to varbinary, but it can grow as much as you like.