Storing files on Database

Question

Hi, i have to save a file in any format (XLS, PDF, DOC, JPG ....) in a database using Java. in my experience i would have do this by storing the binary data of the file into a BLOB type field, someone told me that an alternative is coding the binary data as Text using BASE64 and store the string in a TEXT type field. Which one is the best option to performn this task?.

Thanks.

Paul Manjarres

Answer 1

BLOB would be better, simply because you can use a byte[] data type, and you don't have to encode/decode from BASE64. No reason to use BASE64 for simple storage.

Answer 2

The argument for using BLOB is that it takes fewer CPU cycles, less disk and network i/o, less code, and reduces the likelihood of bugs:

1. As Will Hartung says, using BLOB enables you to skip the encode/decode steps, which will reduce CPU cycles. Moreover, there are many Java libraries for Base64 encoding and decoding, and there are nuances in implementation (ie PEM line wraps). This means to be safe, the same library should be used for encoding and decoding. This creates an unnecessary coupling between the application which creates the record, and the application that reads the record.
2. The encoded output will be larger than the raw bytes, which means it will take up more disk space (and network i/o).

Answer 3

Use BLOB to put them in database