Re: How to parse data type array columns?

Am Dienstag, 16. August 2005 22:08 schrieb Greg Stark:
> Janning Vygen <vygen(at)gmx(dot)de> writes:
> > What kind of "binary format" do you mean? anyway: In PHP you get it as a
> > string and i wonder if anyone has written a small pasrer function for php
> > to handle this string an convert it into an php array structure.
>
> The server can provide each data type in either ascii format or in a binary
> representation. In general the binary representation is something that's
> easier and more efficient to process by machine. I'm not sure what the
> array representation looks like though.
>
> I don't know whether the PHP driver uses binary representations for
> anything. If it does it would make things like integers (imperceptibly)
> faster and possibly slightly more reliable. In the case of arrays it would
> maybe make it easier to code and maybe significantly more efficient.
>
> It's possible it's already using binary mode for some data types and just
> isn't for arrays. But I suspect it isn't.

Thanks for your great explanation, but in PHP you always get "strings" from
the PostgreSQL module. I guess even the integers are strings, but i am not
sure.

kind regards,
janning