The BYTES data type stores binary strings of variable length.
Aliases
In CockroachDB, the following are aliases for BYTES:
BYTEABLOB
Syntax
To express a byte array constant, see the section on
byte array literals for more
details. For example, the following three are equivalent literals for the same
byte array: b'abc', b'\141\142\143', b'\x61\x62\x63'.
In addition to this syntax, CockroachDB also supports using
string literals, including the
syntax '...', e'...' and x'....' in contexts where a byte array
is otherwise expected.
Size
The size of a BYTES value is variable, but it's recommended to keep values under 1 MB to ensure performance. Above that threshold, write amplification and other considerations may cause significant performance degradation.
Example
> CREATE TABLE bytes (a INT PRIMARY KEY, b BYTES);
> -- explicitly typed BYTES literals
> INSERT INTO bytes VALUES (1, b'\141\142\143'), (2, b'\x61\x62\x63'), (3, b'\141\x62\c');
> -- string literal implicitly typed as BYTES
> INSERT INTO bytes VALUES (4, 'abc');
> SELECT * FROM bytes;
+---+-----+
| a | b |
+---+-----+
| 1 | abc |
| 2 | abc |
| 3 | abc |
| 4 | abc |
+---+-----+
(4 rows)
Supported Conversions
BYTES values can be
cast explicitly to
STRING. The output of the conversion starts with the
two characters \, x and the rest of the string is composed by the
hexadecimal encoding of each byte in the input. For example,
x'48AA'::STRING produces '\x48AA'.
STRING values can be cast explicitly to BYTES. This conversion
will fail if the hexadecimal digits are not valid, or if there is an
odd number of them. Two conversion modes are supported:
If the string starts with the two special characters
\andx(e.g.,\xAABB), the rest of the string is interpreted as a sequence of hexadecimal digits. The string is then converted to a byte array where each pair of hexadecimal digits is converted to one byte.Otherwise, the string is converted to a byte array that contains its UTF-8 encoding.
