Shachar Shemesh wrote:
>> Perhaps OLE is trying to use binary instead of text transmission of
>> data?
>>
> Of course it does. That's what the OLE DB specs say. Said so in my
> original email.
>
Why the heck do the OLE DB specs care about the internals of the
client-server prototocol? It is documented fairly clearly that text is
the only portable way to transfer data.
Perhaps we need to expand this sentence in the docs: "Keep in mind that
binary representations for complex data types may change across server
versions;"
The COPY docs are probably more correct: "The BINARY key word causes all
data to be stored/read as binary format rather than as text. It is
somewhat faster than the normal text mode, but a binary-format file is
less portable across machine architectures and PostgreSQL versions."
I do recall someone telling me that text mode transfer could actually be
faster than binary, somewhat to their (and my) surprise.
cheers
andrew
