storing forum posts in mysql

Question

phpBB stores forum post texts in a strange way (like: [BLOB - 115 B]), what is it? How it is done?

Answer 1

BLOB (Binary Large Object) is a large collection of binary data stored in a database table. Different database servers handles BLOB differently. But there are some common characteristics like:

• BLOB stores binary data, which
  requires no encoding schema. BLOB
  data is stored in units of bytes.

• BLOB data is usually large. Many
  database servers offer very high
  maximum sizes like 4 GB.

• BLOB data is usually not directly stored inside the table. It is stored in different storage areas and its reference address is stored inside the table.