Cory Nemelka <cnemelka(at)gmail(dot)com> writes:
> Yes, but I should be able to read them much faster. The psql client can
> display an 11MB column in a little over a minute, while in C using libpg
> library, it takes over an hour.
Well, of course psql relies on libpq, so it seems unlikely that libpq
itself is where the time is going. Have you tried applying a profiler?
"perf" or "oprofile" or similar tool ought to pinpoint the culprit
pretty easily.
regards, tom lane