Oracle database: How to read a BLOB?

Question

I\'m working with an Oracle database, and I would like to read the contents of a BLOB. How do I do this?

When I do a simple select statement, it merely returns \"(BLOB)

Answer 1

What client do you use? .Net, Java, Ruby, SQLPLUS, SQL DEVELOPER? Where did you write that simple select statement?

And why do you want to read the content of the blob, a blob contains binary data so that data is unreadable. You should use a clob instead of a blob if you want to store text instead of binary content.

I suggest that you download SQL DEVELOPER: http://www.oracle.com/technetwork/developer-tools/sql-developer/overview/index.html . With SQL DEVELOPER you can see the content.