Best way to use a PostgreSQL database as a simple key value store

Question

I am being required to use a postgreSQL database and it will replace my current use of berkeleyDB. Although; I realize this is not an ideal situation, it is beyond my control.

So the question is... If you were required to make postgreSQL into a key value store how would you go about doing this, while making it as efficient as possible?

My values are byte arrays and my key's are strings, I could impose some restrictions on the lengths of these strings.

I assume I should use a blob for my value and primary key column holding the key, but as I am just venturing into this journey I am curious if anyone in the stack overflow community has done this, or if there are any specific 'gotchas' I should look out for.

Answer 1

The extension in Postgresql to properly do this is called hstore. It works in a similar fashion as you would expect other key-value store systems. Just load the extension. The syntax is unique but if you have ever used redis or mongo you will get it quickly. Don't make it harder than it is. I understand, we often don't get to pick our tools and have to make do.
Here is the document page:

http://www.postgresql.org/docs/9.1/static/hstore.html