How to download Postgres bytea column as file - file

Question

Currently, i have a number of files stored in postgres 8.4 as bytea. The file types are .doc, .odt, .pdf, .txt and etc.
May i know how to download all the file stored in Postgres because i need to to do a backup.
I need them in their original file type instead of bytea format.
Thanks!

Answer 1

One simple option is to use COPY command with encode to hex format and then apply xxd shell command (with -p continuous hexdump style switch). For example let's say I have jpg image in bytea column in samples table:
\copy (SELECT encode(file, 'hex') FROM samples LIMIT 1) TO
'/home/grzegorz/Desktop/image.hex'
$ xxd -p -r image.hex > image.jpg
As I checked it works in practice.

Answer 2

Try this:
COPY (SELECT yourbyteacolumn FROM yourtable WHERE <add your clauses here> ...) TO 'youroutputfile' (FORMAT binary)

Answer 3

Here's the simplest thing I could come up with:
psql -qAt "select encode(file,'base64') from files limit 1" | base64 -d
The -qAt is important as it strips off any formatting of the output. These options are available inside the psql shell, too.

Answer 4

base64
psql -Aqt -c "SELECT encode(content, 'base64') FROM ..." | base64 -d > file
xxd
psql -Aqt -c "SELECT encode(content, 'hex') FROM ..." | xxd -p -r > file

Answer 5

If you have a lot of data to download then you can get the lines first and then iterate through each one writing the bytea field to file.
$resource = pg_connect('host=localhost port=5432 dbname=website user=super password=************');
// grab all the user IDs
$userResponse = pg_query('select distinct(r.id) from resource r
join connection c on r.id = c.resource_id_from
join resource rfile on c.resource_id_to = rfile.id and rfile.resource_type_id = 10
join file f on rfile.id = f.resource_id
join file_type ft on f.file_type_id = ft.id
where r.resource_type_id = 38');
// need to work through one by one to handle data
while($user = pg_fetch_array($userResponse)){
$user_id = $user['id'];
$query = 'select r.id, f.data, rfile.resource_type_id, ft.extension from resource r
join connection c on r.id = c.resource_id_from
join resource rfile on c.resource_id_to = rfile.id and rfile.resource_type_id = 10
join file f on rfile.id = f.resource_id
join file_type ft on f.file_type_id = ft.id
where r.resource_type_id = 38 and r.id = ' . $user_id;
$fileResponse = pg_query($query);
$fileData = pg_fetch_array($fileResponse);
$data = pg_unescape_bytea($fileData['data']);
$extension = $fileData['extension'];
$fileId = $fileData['id'];
$filename = $fileId . '.' . $extension;
$fileHandle = fopen($filename, 'w');
fwrite($fileHandle, $data);
fclose($fileHandle);
}

Answer 6

DO $$
DECLARE
l_lob_id OID;
r record; BEGIN
for r in
select data, filename from bytea_table
LOOP
l_lob_id:=lo_from_bytea(0,r.data);
PERFORM lo_export(l_lob_id,'/home/...'||r.filename);
PERFORM lo_unlink(l_lob_id);
END LOOP;
END; $$

Answer 7

Best I'm aware, bytea to file needs to be done at the app level.
(9.1 might change this with the filesystem data wrapper contrib. There's also a lo_export function, but it is not applicable here.)

Answer 8

If you want to do this from a local windows, and not from the server, you will have to run every statement individually, and have PGAdmin and certutil:
Have PGAdmin installed.
Open cmd from the runtime folder or cd "C:\Program Files\pgAdmin 4\v6\runtime"
Run in PGAdmin query to get every statement that you will have to paste in cmd:
SELECT 'set PGPASSWORD={PASSWORD} && psql -h {host} -U {user} -d {db name} -Aqt -c "SELECT encode({bytea_column}, ''base64'') FROM {table} WHERE id='||id||'" > %a% && CERTUTIL -decode %a% "C:\temp{name_of_the_folder}\FileName - '||{file_name}||' ('||TO_CHAR(current_timestamp(),'DD.MM.YYYY,HH24 MI SS')||').'||{file_extension}||'"'
FROM table WHERE ....;
Replace {...}
It will generate something like:
set PGPASSWORD=123 psql -h 192.1.1.1 -U postgres -d my_test_db -Aqt -c "SELECT encode(file_bytea, 'base64') FROM test_table_bytea WHERE id=33" > %a% && CERTUTIL -decode %a% "C:\temp\DB_FILE\FileName - test1 - (06.04.2022,15 42 26).docx"
set PGPASSWORD=123 psql -h 192.1.1.1 -U postgres -d my_test_db -Aqt -c "SELECT encode(file_bytea, 'base64') FROM test_table_bytea WHERE id=44" > %a% && CERTUTIL -decode %a% "C:\temp\DB_FILE\FileName - test2 - (06.04.2022,15 42 26).pdf"
Copy paste all the generated statements in CMD. The files will be saved to your local machine.