[PyGreSQL] Storing images/documents in bytea fields as base64 encoded strings

[Sean Davis]

G. Skerrett wrote:
> We have are developing an internal application to store documents and 
> images in the postgresql db.
> After struggling with escaping the low order characters for 
> including in the bytea field, we hit upon the idea of simply using the 
> python base64 modules to encode files as base64 strings and store the 
> string in the database.
>  
> We think that the benefit is doing this is;
> 1) using an industry standard encoding mechanism so they could be 
> decoded with another application if desired.
> 2) the images/documents are "web/email ready", so storing and encoding 
> stage will encur a penalty hit, hwoever, the retreival will not.
>  
> If any one on this list has suggestions/comments or can see a problem 
> with this strategy, we would appreciate comment.
I think this is a pretty common approach.  You can also store 
base64-encoded in a simple TEXT field.  If you want the DB to do the 
work, look here:

http://www.postgresql.org/docs/current/static/functions-string.html

Sean