Hi, everyone. I've got a client who is planning to upgrade from
PostgreSQL 8.3 to 9.0 in the coming weeks. They use a lot of tables
with bytea columns. They're worried about the switch from octal to hex
formats for bytea data.
Based on everything I know and have read, the change is only for
external representations, for input and output. Output is now by
default in hex, but can be changed with a parameter (bytea_output) that
provides backward compatibility. Input can be in either octal or hex,
with no changes needed.
My client is concerned that the internal representation has changed, and
is asking me for a script that will change the representation, in order
to save space (since hex occupies less space than octal). I'm not aware
of such a need, or even the possibility for this to be done; even if the
internal representation has changed, it'll be handled in the upgrade
process, and doesn't need to be done with anything external.
So I've told them that I don't think that anything is necessary for
either input or output, except (perhaps) to set bytea_output in its
backward-compatibility mode. But I wanted to check with people here,
just to double-check my understanding.
Thanks in advance,
Reuven
--
Reuven M. Lerner -- Web development, consulting, and training
Mobile: +972-54-496-8405 * US phone: 847-230-9795
Skype/AIM: reuvenlerner
