Now, the Blob API isn’t going to be something that you will use often, if ever. It is an internal-ish API that other APIs such as the Image Manipulation API will use.
A blob is an object representing file data. It is retrievable, for example, from a resource store or from a HttpRequest or some other source of file data. It can be saved back to a resource store or to a POST request via HttpRequest.
Blob data cannot be accessed from Javascript. Only metadata can be read. Blobs can only be created and modified by other modules.
The external view is simply:
interface Blob {
readonly attribute int size;
readonly attribute string contentType;
}
Whereas any Gears module can blob.SetData(otherdata);.
Other Future APIs
- Logging API
- Messaging API
- Location API
- Desktop Shortcut API
- Image Manipulation API
- Introduction to the series
Disclaimer: This is early days, and who knows what the final API will look like, or if it will even make it. Do you have ideas for cool Gears that make the Web better? Let us know!.
December 31st, 2007 at 12:05 pm
This would become incredibly useful if I could use it to build a local library of mp3 files, and then direct Flash or Quicktime or HTML5’s audio tag to load from it. In order to accomplish this it will need raw HTTP access. Eg: http://gears.local/blobs/blob-id.mp3
Maybe making blobs addresable is another API altogether.
Whichever way we shake it, browsers are gonna need local http stores sooner or later.
June 28th, 2008 at 9:06 pm
thanks for your share!