From jeff.horner at vanderbilt.edu  Fri Feb 24 17:05:00 2006
From: jeff.horner at vanderbilt.edu (Jeffrey Horner)
Date: Fri, 24 Feb 2006 10:05:00 -0600
Subject: [Rd] Utilizing the internet module
In-Reply-To: <Pine.LNX.4.64.0602240711150.2370@gannet.stats.ox.ac.uk>
References: <43FDEBEB.4040104@vanderbilt.edu>
	<Pine.LNX.4.64.0602231904380.10209@gannet.stats.ox.ac.uk>
	<43FE4031.1080503@vanderbilt.edu>
	<Pine.LNX.4.64.0602240711150.2370@gannet.stats.ox.ac.uk>
Message-ID: <43FF2EAC.3070804@vanderbilt.edu>

Prof Brian Ripley wrote:
> On Thu, 23 Feb 2006, Jeffrey Horner wrote:
[...]
>> On a related note, how do I serialize() an R object to a database 
>> table column of type BLOB? I've tried using RODBC but was 
>> unsuccessfully (see R-sig-DB in Feb archive). I've also looked into 
>> RMySQL/DBI but I don't think it's supported yet.
> 
> 
> Since BLOB is not a standard SQL type (AFAIK), ODBC seems not to support 
> it.
> 

It's not standard, per se, but many ODBC drivers and many databases 
(Oracle, MS SQL Server, MySQL, Postgresql, Access, ...) support such a 
type. In fact, the structured query language standards SQL92 and SQL99 
define the type BIT and BIT VARYING to hold arbitrary bit strings, which 
I think is some sort of endorsement for this type.

-- 
Jeffrey Horner       Computer Systems Analyst         School of Medicine
615-322-8606         Department of Biostatistics   Vanderbilt University



[Rd] Utilizing the internet module
Jeffrey Horner