September 26, 2024: PostgreSQL 17 Released!

external_file extension v1.1 released

Posted on 2022-12-31 by MigOps
Related Open Source

Grenoble - December 27, 2022

PostgreSQL external_file extension

Allow access to "external files" from PostgreSQL server file systems.

This extension adds the same functionalities given by the Oracle's BFILE data type that stores unstructured binary data in flat files outside the database. A BFILE column stores a file locator that points to an external file containing the data: (DIRECTORY, FILENAME). Here the data type is called EFILE.

The extension access to external files using secure call to the server side lo_* functions and not by directly reading/writing to files.

external_file v1.1 has been released, this is a maintenance release to fix issues reported by users since previous version.

  • Add the efilename() function as equivalent to the Oracle BFILENAME() function.
  • Improve Makefile and detect minimum version of PostgreSQL requirement.
  • Fix make install error about file README.external_file.

Complete list of changes and acknowledgement is available here

Links & Credits

external_file is an open project under the PostgreSQL license created by Dominique Legendre (BRGM) and maintained by Gilles Darold (MigOps). Any contribution to build a better tool is welcome. You can send your ideas, features requests or patches using the GitHub tools.

Links :