Re: Binary Cursors, and the COPY command

pgsql(at)mohawksoft(dot)com wrote:

> The only use case network byte order fixes is a BINARY COPY between
> different machine types, but in doing that, it forces anyone trying to add
> value to postgresql or create a utility that uses COPY to reimplement all
> the data type handlers outside of the database, even if they never need to
> interpret or inspect the values, because they have to do this to put them
> in network byte order.

This is not true if you happen to be using Java on the client side,
which has no idea (unless you grot around in the guts of the JVM) what
the native byte order is. This actually means that Java clients have the
opposite problem -- it's a lot of work to try to use the 7.3-style
binary formats.

> I would say that the history of the word "BINARY" would tend more to
> indicate incompatible machine specific data.

"Binary" implies "not plaintext" to me..

What about binary parameters in Bind or binary resultsets from Execute?
They follow the same format as binary COPY values. Are you suggesting
those should be changed too?

-O