Re: Using TEXT columns for binary content

Tom Lane wrote:
> Joe Conway <mail@joeconway.com> writes:
>
>>1) You have to encode to base64 on the way in (bytea has to be escaped
>>    on INSERT/UPDATE too)
>>2) You have to decode to binary on the way out (depending on your
>>    middleware, you can use a binary cursor for bytea and avoid the
>>    decode on SELECT)
>
> Note that the 7.4 protocol should make it a lot easier to use bytea for
> binary data without any escaping ... although some amount of client
> reprogramming would be needed ...
>

Yeah -- client library support (e.g. PHP, Python, etc) will probably lag
7.4's release by a bit, but I expect bytea will become the most sensible
option once everything is in place. Even now, I find bytea use for small
images pretty quick and easy (with PHP at least).

Joe