Importbinary and exportbinary support functions
The importbinary and exportbinary support functions perform any
tasks needed to process the external binary representation of an opaque
type for a bulk copy, as follows:
- The importbinary function imports binary data by converting from some binary representation to the internal representation.
- The exportbinary function exports binary data by converting from internal representation to some binary representation.
These support functions do not have to be named importbinary and exportbinary,
but they do have to perform the specified conversions. They should
be reciprocal functions; that is, the importbinary function should
produce a value that the exportbinary function accepts as an argument
and conversely. The HCL®
OneDB® DataBlade®
API provides functions
that support conversion between different internal representations
of opaque types.
For opaque data types that have identical external and internal representations, the import and importbinary support functions can be the same function. Similarly, the export and exportbinary support functions can be the same function.