"Warren W. Gay VE3WWG" <ve3wwg@cogeco.ca> writes:
> If I use the binary interface, I now have to convert your "decimal" number
> to someone else's format, so I can do something with it.
> Oracle or INFORMIX OTOH, provide the user access to
> routines to manipulate their builtin data types.
We don't encourage people to use the binary interface at all, because we
don't want to get involved with handling cross-platform representational
differences (not to mention version-to-version changes in internal
representation). Therefore there's no reason to export routines that
would handle the server-internal binary representatin.
regards, tom lane