it means Binary Language Representation. Within the engine, there is no SQL, no GDML, no QUEL - no relational language designed to be read and written by people. Instead, queries are represented in a binary notation that is a super set of the relational languages we knew. Gpre and QLI both parse SQL and GDML into BLR. When you successfully compile a stored procedure or a trigger, its compiled representation is kept in a BLOB sub type field, in the BLR format. Also, The current DSQL interface to the server translates the queries into BLR. You can use the command-line tool isql to watch the BLR representation of triggers, stored procedures, check constraints, defaults and views if you do the command SET BLOB ALL and then use a select statement to get the appropriate BLR fields from the system tables.