Oracle accesses files on the server by using a directory, which is a pointer to an operating system folder.
To map a folder to you local folder C:\IO, execute the following SQL commands:
create directory IO as 'C:\IO'; grant read, write on directory IO to public;
Now, when you refer to IO in any commands, you're referring to the C:\IO folder in the file system.
To create a pointer to the file on the server and place that pointer in the table on an existing record.
drop table catalog; create table catalog( item_id number, name_tx VARCHAR2(2000), manual_cl CLOB, firstpage_bl BLOB, mastertxt_bf BFILE ); declare v_bf BFILE; begin v_bf:=BFILENAME ('IO', 'text.htm'); insert into t_catalog(item_id, name_tx, mastertxt_bf) values (1, 'TEXT.HTM', v_bf); end; /