Message-ID: <40466342.1000608@joeconway.com>
Date: Wed, 03 Mar 2004 14:59:14 -0800
From: Joe Conway <mail@joeconway.com>
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To: Achilleus Mantzios <achill@matrix.gatewaynet.com>
Cc: pgsql-sql@postgresql.org
Subject: Re: Encoding bytea
References: <Pine.LNX.4.44.0403031457110.2444-100000@matrix.gatewaynet.com>
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Achilleus Mantzios wrote:

> is there a way to encode a bytea in such a way that the resulting
> text stream be readily available (\\ escaped for unprintable chars) for 
> usage in an insert statement?
> 
> None of base64,hex,escape options in encode() seem to produce
> anything close.
> 
> This is meant to be used with generating insert statements in xml files
> for remote processing.

Is this what you need?

create table t(f bytea);
insert into b values ('a\\003\\000\\001b');

create or replace function bytea2text(bytea) returns text as '
begin
  return $1;
end;
' language plpgsql;

regression=# select 'insert into t values(' || 
quote_literal(bytea2text(f)) || ');' from t;
                   ?column?
--------------------------------------------
  insert into t values('a\\003\\000\\001b');
(1 row)

regression=# insert into t values('a\\003\\000\\001b');
INSERT 292656 1

HTH,

Joe