I'm totally a MySQL rookie but I would recommend using a text (upto 64k) or longtext (upto 4GB) if I was reading any textual file because the text types are searchable within SQL with their own flavor of regexes. Although they're not as nice as Perl's, they may be faster on their own data (especially if it's large data like longtext) because it won't have to all be duplicated in memory into a scalar for Perl to examine.

A blob is basically for binary data as I understand it. If you wanted to store image files (or sounds) in your database, that would probably be the best place to store them. I guess a simple answer is: If the file you wish to import contains binary data, use the blob type and use text for anything else. I hope this helps. TTFN & Shalom.

-PipTigger

p.s. Initiate Nail Removal Immediately!