String io module for postgresql.
Copyright (C) 1999, Massimo Dal Zotto <dz@cs.unitn.it>

This software is distributed under the GNU General Public License
either version 2, or (at your option) any later version.


These output functions can be used as substitution of the standard text
output functions to get the value of text fields printed in the format
used for C strings. This allows the output of queries or the exported
files to be processed more easily using standard unix filter programs
like perl or awk.

If you use the standard functions instead you could find a single tuple
splitted into many lines and the tabs embedded in the values could be
confused with those used as field delimters.

My function translates all non-printing characters into corresponding
esacape sequences as defined by the C syntax. All you need to reconstruct
the exact value in your application is a corresponding unescape function
like the string_input defined in the source code.

Massimo Dal Zotto <dz@cs.unitn.it>