The Oracle BLOB and BFILE data types are used to store blocks of unstructured data. Database columns of these types store locators. For the BLOB data type, the data is stored within the database. For the BFILE, the data is stored outside of Oracle as an operating system file. For this reason, the BFILE data type is read-only, and cannot be modified or participate in a transaction. For more information on how Oracle defines these data types, see your Oracle documentation. For information about the specific ABL statements and functions that allow access to and manipulation of LOB data and related objects, see ABL Reference.