# Playing with bit strings

DevFeed: [Playing with bit strings](<https://devfeed.tech/articles/playing-with-bit-strings-34384.md>)

Original publisher: [Read original article](<https://tapoueh.org/blog/2010/08/playing-with-bit-strings/>)

Author: Dimitri Fontaine PostgreSQL Major Contributor; Author

Published: 2010-08-26T15:45:00Z

Content type: tutorial

Language: en

Sources: [Dimitri Fontaine](<https://devfeed.tech/sources/dimitri-fontaine.md>)

Topics: [Database](<https://devfeed.tech/topics/database.md>), [Databases](<https://devfeed.tech/topics/databases.md>)

Tags: [conversion](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/conversion.md>), [database](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/database.md>), [documentation](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/documentation.md>), [storage](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/storage.md>), [tests](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/tests.md>)

## AI overview

A technical article explores using bit strings to reduce MD5 storage in a database. It discusses converting between bit strings and hexadecimal text, with tests and an example involving a large sample table.

## Source excerpt

The idea of the day ain't directly from me, I'm just helping with a very thin subpart of the problem. The problem, I can't say much about, let's just assume you want to reduce the storage of MD5 in your database, so you want to abuse bit strings. A solution to use them works fine, but the datatype is still missing some facilities, for example going from and to hexadecimal representation in text.