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how to use Blob datatype in Postgres

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What is BLOB datatype in PostgreSQL?

Blob (Binary large object) is an Oracle data type that is used to store binary data like contents of a file or information like audio, video, and images. PostgreSQL does not have the Blob data type directly, but we can work with it using the methods below.

Does PostgreSQL support BLOB?

PostgreSQL does not support BLOB but you can use the BYTEA data type for storing the binary data.

What is BLOB datatype used for?

A blob is a data type that can store binary data. This is different than most other data types used in databases, such as integers, floating point numbers, characters, and strings, which store letters and numbers. Since blobs can store binary data, they can be used to store images or other multimedia files.

What is the datatype for BLOB?

A BLOB (binary large object) is a varying-length binary string that can be up to 2,147,483,647 characters long. Like other binary types, BLOB strings are not associated with a code page. In addition, BLOB strings do not hold character data.


use bytea (or Large Objects if you absolutely have to)


I think this is the most comprehensive answer on the PostgreSQL wiki itself: https://wiki.postgresql.org/wiki/BinaryFilesInDB

Read the part with the title 'What is the best way to store the files in the Database?'


Storing files in your database will lead to a huge database size. You may not like that, for development, testing, backups, etc.

Instead, you'd use FileStream (SQL-Server) or BFILE (Oracle).

There is no default-implementation of BFILE/FileStream in Postgres, but you can add it: https://github.com/darold/external_file

And further information (in french) can be obtained here:
http://blog.dalibo.com/2015/01/26/Extension_BFILE_pour_PostgreSQL.html


To answer the acual question:
Apart from bytea, for really large files, you can use LOBS:

// http://stackoverflow.com/questions/14509747/inserting-large-object-into-postgresql-returns-53200-out-of-memory-error
// https://github.com/npgsql/Npgsql/wiki/User-Manual
public int InsertLargeObject()
{
    int noid;
    byte[] BinaryData = new byte[123];

    // Npgsql.NpgsqlCommand cmd ;
    // long lng = cmd.LastInsertedOID;

    using (Npgsql.NpgsqlConnection connection = new Npgsql.NpgsqlConnection(GetConnectionString()))
    {
        using (Npgsql.NpgsqlTransaction transaction = connection.BeginTransaction())
        {
            try
            {
                NpgsqlTypes.LargeObjectManager manager = new NpgsqlTypes.LargeObjectManager(connection);
                noid = manager.Create(NpgsqlTypes.LargeObjectManager.READWRITE);
                NpgsqlTypes.LargeObject lo = manager.Open(noid, NpgsqlTypes.LargeObjectManager.READWRITE);

                // lo.Write(BinaryData);
                int i = 0;
                do
                {
                    int length = 1000;
                    if (i + length > BinaryData.Length)
                        length = BinaryData.Length - i;

                    byte[] chunk = new byte[length];
                    System.Array.Copy(BinaryData, i, chunk, 0, length);
                    lo.Write(chunk, 0, length);
                    i += length;
                } while (i < BinaryData.Length);

                lo.Close();
                transaction.Commit();
            } // End Try
            catch
            {
                transaction.Rollback();
                throw;
            } // End Catch

            return noid;
        } // End Using transaction 

    } // End using connection

} // End Function InsertLargeObject 



public System.Drawing.Image GetLargeDrawing(int idOfOID)
{
    System.Drawing.Image img;

    using (Npgsql.NpgsqlConnection connection = new Npgsql.NpgsqlConnection(GetConnectionString()))
    {
        lock (connection)
        {
            if (connection.State != System.Data.ConnectionState.Open)
                connection.Open();

            using (Npgsql.NpgsqlTransaction trans = connection.BeginTransaction())
            {
                NpgsqlTypes.LargeObjectManager lbm = new NpgsqlTypes.LargeObjectManager(connection);
                NpgsqlTypes.LargeObject lo = lbm.Open(takeOID(idOfOID), NpgsqlTypes.LargeObjectManager.READWRITE); //take picture oid from metod takeOID
                byte[] buffer = new byte[32768];

                using (System.IO.MemoryStream ms = new System.IO.MemoryStream())
                {
                    int read;
                    while ((read = lo.Read(buffer, 0, buffer.Length)) > 0)
                    {
                        ms.Write(buffer, 0, read);
                    } // Whend

                    img = System.Drawing.Image.FromStream(ms);
                } // End Using ms

                lo.Close();
                trans.Commit();

                if (connection.State != System.Data.ConnectionState.Closed)
                    connection.Close();
            } // End Using trans

        } // End lock connection

    } // End Using connection

    return img;
} // End Function GetLargeDrawing



public void DeleteLargeObject(int noid)
{
    using (Npgsql.NpgsqlConnection connection = new Npgsql.NpgsqlConnection(GetConnectionString()))
    {
        if (connection.State != System.Data.ConnectionState.Open)
            connection.Open();

        using (Npgsql.NpgsqlTransaction trans = connection.BeginTransaction())
        {
            NpgsqlTypes.LargeObjectManager lbm = new NpgsqlTypes.LargeObjectManager(connection);
            lbm.Delete(noid);

            trans.Commit();

            if (connection.State != System.Data.ConnectionState.Closed)
                connection.Close();
        } // End Using trans 

    } // End Using connection

} // End Sub DeleteLargeObject