Re: Extending varlena

David Fetter <david@fetter.org> writes:
> On Mon, Aug 18, 2008 at 06:09:13PM -0400, Andrew Chernow wrote:
>> I always find these requests puzzling.  Is it really useful to store
>> the  data for a jpeg, video file or a 10GB tar ball in a database
>> column?  

> It is if you need transaction semantics.  Think medical records, etc.

The basic problem with outside-the-DB data storage is keeping it in sync
with your inside-the-DB metadata.  In a slowly changing dataset you can
probably get away with external storage, but if there's lots of updates
then allowing the DB to manage the storage definitely makes life easier.

This is not to say that you want SQL-style operations on the blobs;
in fact I think you probably don't, which is why I was pointing to
a LO-style API.
        regards, tom lane