Most data types, such as INTEGER and CHARACTER, do not have any
special processing characteristics. However, there are a few data types that
require special functions or locators in order to use them.
Use large objects (LOBs)
The VARCHAR, VARGRAPHIC, and VARBINARY data types have a limit of 32 KB (where KB equals 1024 bytes) of storage. While this may be sufficient for small to medium-size text data, applications often need to store large text documents. They might also need to store a wide variety of additional data types such as audio, video, drawings, mixed text and graphics, and images. There are three data types to store these data objects as strings of up to 2 GB (where GB equals 1 073 741 824 bytes).
Use user-defined distinct types (UDT)
A user-defined distinct type is a mechanism that allows you to
extend DB2® capabilities
beyond the built-in data types available.
Examples of using UDTs, UDFs, and LOBs
The following examples show how you can use user-defined types (UDTs), user-defined functions (UDFs), and large objects (LOBs) together in complex applications.
Use DataLinks
The DataLink data type is one of the basic building blocks for extending the types of data that can be stored in database files. The idea of a DataLink is that the actual data stored in the column is only a pointer to the object.