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The IBExpert Blob Viewer/Editor can be found in the IBExpert Tools menu. (This feature is unfortunately not included in the free IBExpert Personal Edition.)

It enables blob fields in an open grid (e.g. the Table Editor / Data page, the SQL Editor / Results page) to be viewed as Text, Hex, Picture (PNG - Portable Network Graphics - and TIFF images are supported), RTF, Web Page, XML, As Unicode Text, or As PDF. The As Format page supports Firebird 3 format descriptors. The As JSON data format was implemented in IBExpert version 2020.01.06. The final page, As IBExpert/Firebird Block offers integrated debugging of IBEBlocks.

The toolbar offers possibilites to open and save as files, a range of navigational buttons and a Refresh button. To the right of the blob size display is the Text page option to highlight the text as None, SQL, HTML or Delphi form (DFM).

The image viewer allows you to zoom in/out using the mouse wheel and the "+"/"-" buttons on the keyboard; you can switch between actual size and "fit to window" mode using a double-click or pressing the space button; and it is possible to drag the image by holding down the left mouse button.

The individual fields in the blob column can be viewed and navigated using the editor's navigational toolbar (please refer to Blob Viewer/Editor toolbar for details). Even array values can be viewed and edited here using the HEX format.

The As BLR page allows blobs with subtype 2 data to be displayed:

Please note: If blob data is modified using the As JSON page, IBExpert will try to remove all insignificant whitespaces before post. There is Remove whitespaces on post checkbox to control this behaviour. If there is a syntax error in JSON data - it will be posted "as is", without removing whitespaces. JSON syntax highlighting is available also on As text page.

This shows what is really physically in the database.

See also:
Tools toolbar
Blob data type
Blob filter
InterBase, Firebird and Blobs - a technical overview
Blob filter sample code
Stream blobs

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