Paul,
VFP stores data in general field in standard OLE storage format. First 19 bytes of this format contains information about type of object. This format is not documented and you need to use OLE functions like OleCreateFromFile or OleCreateFromData to create an object from these data. Not sure that it's possible in VFP.

>When VFP saves a general field, does it include a wrapper or some class information along with the object???
>
>The problem we have is that my colleague is using a general field to get various different types of files (could be excel, could be pdf etc) into our oracle database. Fine so far. But now I am using ADO (+VFP or VB) to get the data back out again. I've had loads of problems getting either language to recognise the format of the data, so I saved the blob as a file. Even this didn't work, but when I looked closely at the start of each file in a text editor there was the fragment Visual FoxPro[Class] e.g. Visual FoxProExcel.Sheet.8.
>
>If VFP is putting a class wrapper around the document then that automatically makes the data proprietory to VFP, which kills my work stone dead.
>
>I've tried saving this data back into a general field and basing my OLE bound control on that but it doesn't really want to know....it doesn't crash but it doesn't work either...it just sits there in limbo sucking up memory.