Subject: ASCII file storage in Postgres

From: [email-masked] (Christine Cullen)
Date: Tue, 22 Mar 94 08:26:23 MST

Hello,
I am a brand new user of Postgres.  I realize that this question
may be ridiculous, but I need help desperately.  
We are interested in using Postgres to store and query large 
scientific data ascii files.  Is is possible to actually 
put the data in a Postgres database?  And if so, does anyone have
any hints?  All help is greatly appreciated!
Thanks!
Chris

________________________________________________________________                                                
Christine A. Cullen          
Visualization and Imaging
INEL                         "To sin by silence when we should             
P.O. Box 1625                 protest, makes cowards out of men."          
Idaho Falls, ID 83415                          
phone (208) 526-8346                        Ella Wheeler Wilcox
email [email-masked] 
________________________________________________________________

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From: [email-masked] (Paul M. Aoki)
Date: Wed, 23 Mar 94 16:39:58 -0800

[email-masked] (Christine Cullen) writes:
> scientific data ascii files.

there's no inherent reason why you can't -- postgres supports
typed (as opposed to BLOB) large objects.  it's not clear what
you're trying to do in terms of "query", though.  for example,
it's not clear whether it might not be better to store the
actual data in tables rather than what amount to flat files in
BLOBs.  at this point, we're falling into the realm of database 
design consulting.

general advice:
if you have a production (as opposed to prototype) application
i would recommend buying supported software.  it will have bugs,
too, but (one would hope) not as many and there's someone you 
can call and yell at.
--
  Paul M. Aoki  |  CS Div., Dept. of EECS, UCB  |  [email-masked]
                |  Berkeley, CA 94720           |  ...!uunet!ucbvax!aoki