What is the difference between CLOB and NCLOB?

Question

Can you state any difference between the CLOB and NCLOB?

Tortoiseshell

Answer 1

A CLOB stores character data encoded in the database character set. A NCLOB stores character data encoded in the national character set

SELECT parameter, value
  FROM v$nls_parameters
 WHERE parameter LIKE '%CHARACTERSET'

will show you the database and national character sets of your database.

Anapest

upvoted. Note the difference between a CLOB/NCLOB and a BLOB is that the CLOB/NCLOB can have characters translated to the database character set from the client characterset or vice versa. The bytes in a BLOB won't be converted. – Oppressive

Answer 2

BLOB, CLOB, NCLOB and BFILE The built-in LOB data types BLOB, CLOB and NCLOB (stored internally), and BFILE (stored externally), can store large and unstructured data such as text, images and spatial data up to 4 gigabytes in size.

BLOB

The BLOB data type stores binary large objects. BLOB can store up to 4 gigabytes of binary data.

CLOB

The CBLOB data type stores character large objects. CLOB can store up to 4 gigabytes of character data.

NCLOB

The NCBLOB data type stores character large objects in multibyte national character set. NCLOB can store up to 4 gigabytes of character data.

BFILE

The BFILE data type enables access to binary file LOBs that are stored in file systems outside the Oracle database. A BFILE column stores a locator, which serves as a pointer to a binary file on the server's file system. The maximum file size supported is 4 gigabytes.

Kincardine