Inserting .png file into bytea column

Good Morning All,

I am using PostgreSQL 9.3 on Linux Rehat...

I'm trying to insert an image (.png format) into a table of flags. I've tried the following but keep getting errors.

CREATE TABLE FLAGS (country_code text, flag bytea);

INSERT INTO flags VALUES ('AD', pg_read_file('/home/flags')::bytea);

Get the following error:
ERROR: absolute path not allowed
*********ERROR*************
ERROR: absolute path not allowed
SQL State: 42501

Any assistance would be greatly appreciated.

Denise Ferrell