[MonetDB-users] how to read/write blob data ?

I want to store image files into monetdb sql server. I think there are two approaches to do it: the first one is to store the file's full path in a column with varchar type, the second one is to store the image data in a column with blob type. I don't want to see a lot of small image files in the directory, so I choose the second approach. After reading the monetdb manual, I find some examples like this: sql> insert into t1 values (1, blob '012'); I think this is not enough. I also try to use odbc api to store binary data into monetdb, but failed. So please help me to write the blob data into monetdb, as well as the read operation. Maybe there are other ways I don't know, please tell me, thanks!