Databases and BLOBS

[serial]

Just curious would it be possible to use database blobs with TV and if so would there be any things to consider with putting like all of your assets in BLOB form and accessing that way?

I'm specifically talking about ScimoreDB.  It seems pretty easy to embed and query from VB.net.

[pabloescobar]

It will be a package with relational features... ^^

You can fit any data in blod fields. Just create an nice database model and you wont have problem at all.

Check also SQLite (its very small/fast embeded database).

[tdishman]

While BLOBs can be useful and on the surface they are very attractive, when things go bad with a BLOB it really goes bad. 

I don't know anything about that particular database, but every other database I've used in the past is not terribly friendly when it comes to BLOBs.  My general rule of thumb has been to not use BLOBs unless necessary (and to date I've never found a necessity).  I've always found that storing indexes to files is much easier to manage, and a ton easier to recover if something gets fouled up.

[EagleEye]

For a long time I planned on using BLOB fields to store the meat of the data for my game state objects.

I changed my mind because to do so would require binary serialization of those objects (to make a byte array that would then be stored).

Binary serialization comes with a few problems attached to it... like if you change the class that you serialized, you can't then deserialize back in to it without an exception regarding an invalid class signature.

I changed to MediumText fields and XML serialization.