title: Why PostgreSQL store data in hex in own format?
body: <p>I can't understand the reason why PostgreSQL store <a href="http://www.postgresql.org/docs/current/static/datatype-binary.html" rel="nofollow">data</a> in own format</p>
  
  <blockquote>
    <p>The "hex" format encodes binary data as 2 hexadecimal digits per byte, most significant nibble first. The entire string is preceded by the sequence \x (to distinguish it from the escape format).</p>
  </blockquote>
  
  <p>Does it's mean that it is not simple <code>hex</code> and it would not possible to simple convert this <code>hex</code> to <code>byte</code> type and I should write parser of PostgreSQL hex format?</p>