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To: Florian Weimer <fw@deneb.enyo.de>
cc: pgsql-interfaces@postgresql.org
Subject: Re: Type OIDs 
In-reply-to: <87r5xxwt3s.fsf@mid.deneb.enyo.de> 
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 <10172.1244057188@sss.pgh.pa.us>
	<87r5xxwt3s.fsf@mid.deneb.enyo.de>
Comments: In-reply-to Florian Weimer <fw@deneb.enyo.de>
	message dated "Sat, 06 Jun 2009 12:32:07 +0200"
Date: Sat, 06 Jun 2009 11:15:02 -0400
Message-ID: <9704.1244301302@sss.pgh.pa.us>
From: Tom Lane <tgl@sss.pgh.pa.us>
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Florian Weimer <fw@deneb.enyo.de> writes:
> By the way, the binary encoding would be pretty useful for BYTEA
> columns and parameters, but it's a pretty hefty burden for almost
> anything else.  Wouldn't it make sense to add a format flag which
> basically says "binary if it's BYTEA, otherwise text"?

What is "easy" is very much in the eye of the beholder --- I would think
for instance that a lot of people would consider integer columns to be
easy enough to deal with in binary format.  ntohl() isn't much of a
burden.

As far as output goes, I seem to recall some discussion awhile back of a
format value that would mean "send <some list of types> in binary" where
the specific list could be set by the client.  This would seem to me to
be a lot more useful and less klugy than hard-wiring bytea as a special
case.  On the input side it's much more questionable since (as you
noted) clients don't always have a solid grasp on which parameters
are which types.

			regards, tom lane