# class PG::TextEncoder::Bytea

This is an encoder class for the PostgreSQL `bytea` type.

The binary `String` is converted to hexadecimal representation for transmission in text format. For query bind parameters it is recommended to use `PG::BinaryEncoder::Bytea` or the hash form `{value: binary_string, format: 1}` instead, in order to decrease network traffic and CPU usage. See `PG::Connection#exec_params` for using the hash form.

This encoder is particular useful when `PG::TextEncoder::CopyRow` is used with the COPY command. In this case there’s no way to change the format of a single column to binary, so that the data have to be converted to bytea hex representation.