On 2012-05-22, Carlos Mennens <carlos.menn...@gmail.com> wrote: > Hello everyone! I wanted to ask the list a question about the 'bytea' > data type & how I can picture this in my head. I've been reading SQL > for about a few months now and since then, I've only been working with > textual data. Basically I'm familiar with storing text and numerical > characters into tables but my friend told me that databases can hold > much more than just ASCI text. In so I've read up on some pages that > describe the bytea data type: > > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Binary_large_object > > http://www.postgresql.org/docs/9.1/static/datatype-binary.html > > So my question is can and in fact does PostgreSQL and most other RDBMS > have the ability to store large binary files like photos, music, etc > etc into an actual table? I'm guessing the data is dumped into the > table but rather linked or parsed through the file system store path > into the database itself, right? I would just like to know in a basic > round about way how databases store and handle large files like .jpg > or .png files & regardless how relative this term is, how common is it > to use these files or 'bytea' data in tables? > > Thanks for any info!
postgres has a maximum logical row size just under 2GiB so there's plenty of room there for photos etc (DVD images might not fit). postgres uses a strategy called TOAST to move "wide" values out of the file that holds the main table. implementation detals: http://www.postgresql.org/docs/9.1/static/storage-toast.html -- ⚂⚃ 100% natural -- Sent via pgsql-sql mailing list (pgsql-sql@postgresql.org) To make changes to your subscription: http://www.postgresql.org/mailpref/pgsql-sql
