Reading BLOB fields from the database

[Migrated From Jforum.net]

I would like to read post text directly from the database with SQL. However, since the field is a blob the result is not readable.

I have tried the following SQL:

select utl_raw.cast_to_varchar2(dbms_lob.substr(j.post_text, 100, 1))  from JFORUM_POSTS_TEXT j;
select utl_raw.cast_to_varchar2(j.post_text)  from JFORUM_POSTS_TEXT j;

Does anyone have a clue?

I'm using JForum 2.1.6 with Oracle 9.
[originally posted on jforum.net by frankern]