We have a need to store photos with our application. While I know I
can use a blob for this data type I'm looking for alternative
suggestions for folks who have similar applications.

We are a "fat client", Powerbuilder application, with AIX as the
Informix Server.

One concept I had kicked around was to store a path (or hyperlink)
within a table and physically store the photo outside the actual
Informix database as a standard JPG file. We do a lot of database
exports and imports and blobs don't behave all that well - nor are
they performant in this scenario.

One choice would be to use a NT server accessable to the clients and
have PowerBuilder access the NT system directly.

A second choice would be to store the JPG on an AIX file system. I'm
not sure if PowerBuilder could touch this directly, but I had thought
you could shell the program to FTP the file?

A third choice might be to have the client program call a database
stored procedure, passing the AIX path to the JPG, and have the stored
procedure return the blob. However, I'm not sure how I would "read"
the JPG into the Stored Procedure. How feasible do you think this is?

Thanks for your consideration.

Fred Prose
AZ Supreme Court