Postgres' text column doesn't like my zlib compressed data

Question

Is there a better data type to be using to store a zlib compressed string in Postgresql?

For PostgreSQL automatic compression (by TOAST), see http://stackoverflow.com/q/3801416/287948 — Peter Krauss, May 07 '12 at 10:33

score 8 · Answer 1 · edited Jun 02 '10 at 15:53

8

Use bytea "The bytea data type allows storage of binary strings"

edited Jun 02 '10 at 15:53

leonbloy

answered Jun 02 '10 at 13:27

nos

Interesting. Any idea what this would be in Django? Meaning what Django field type would yield this type in Postgres? – Rhubarb Jun 02 '10 at 13:31
Apparently django doesn't support bytea directly - see http://stackoverflow.com/questions/517349/binaryfields-in-django-models , You could e.g. base64 encode your data and continue to use a text field - though you'd lose some of the benefit of compression – nos Jun 02 '10 at 13:41
See [`BinaryField`](https://docs.djangoproject.com/en/1.11/ref/models/fields/#binaryfield). – Phil Krylov Aug 09 '17 at 12:29

halfdan · Answer 2 · 2010-06-02T16:13:16.953

4

Use a bytea. Zip compressed data is not a text.

edited Jun 02 '10 at 16:13

answered Jun 02 '10 at 13:26

halfdan

2

Citing sources last updated 8 years ago when up to date and authoritative sources exist is probably more confusing than helpful. – Milen A. Radev Jun 02 '10 at 13:35
`bytea` , as by other answer, is what corresponds, in Postgresql, to the BLOB concept. – leonbloy Jun 02 '10 at 15:55

2 Answers2