I'm using the latest JDBC driver (8.1-407) with PostgreSQL 8.1.3 (on Windows) and PostgreSQL 8.1.4 (on Debian).  I've searched the archives, and found several applicable thread that were never responded to or apparently resolved:

• http://archives.postgresql.org/pgsql-bugs/2001-04/msg00216.php
• http://mail-archive.objectweb.org/dods/2001-11/msg00007.html

I'm using JDBC to store (binary) files in a database, and have tried storing the content in a BYTEA column and using the Large Object API and storing a OID column in my table.  I am able to upload various files into the database, but when I download them the 0xFF characters in the uploaded files have all been stripped.  I've looked for a configuration setting, but don't see anything of use.  (The database or client character encodings should not apply to binary data.)

Any suggestions?  Is this a bug?  (If it is a bug, it seems hard to believe that nobody has run across this.)

Thanks in advance!

Randall