How can I directly view blobs in MySQL Workbench

Question

I'm using MySQL Workbench CE 5.2.30 CE / Rev 6790 . When execute the following statement:

SELECT OLD_PASSWORD("test") 

I only get back a nice BLOB icon, I need to left-click to select the cell, right-click and choose "Open Value in viewer" and select the "Text" tab.

Using the same with phpMyAdmin, I get directly back the value of the OLD_PASSWORD call. It's just an example, but is there a way to directly see such results in the output?

Answer 1

In short:

1. Go to Edit > Preferences
2. Choose SQL Editor
3. Under SQL Execution, check Treat BINARY/VARBINARY as nonbinary character string
4. Restart MySQL Workbench (you will not be prompted or informed of this requirement).

In MySQL Workbench 6.0+

1. Go to Edit > Preferences
2. Choose SQL Queries
3. Under Query Results, check Treat BINARY/VARBINARY as nonbinary character string
4. It's not mandatory to restart MySQL Workbench (you will not be prompted or informed of this requirement).*

With this setting you will be able to concatenate fields without getting blobs.

I think this applies to versions 5.2.22 and later and is the result of this MySQL bug.

Disclaimer: I don't know what the downside of this setting is - maybe when you are selecting BINARY/VARBINARY values you will see it as plain text which may be misleading and/or maybe it will hinder performance if they are large enough?

Answer 2

I'm not sure if this answers the question but if if you right click on the "blob" icon in the field (when viewing the table) there is an option to "Open Value in Editor". One of the tabs lets you view the blob. This is in ver. 5.2.34