php: reversing mysql_real_escape_string's effects on binary

Question

I built a webpage where users can submit a PDF which is then inserted into a MySQL database in a mediumblob for retrieval later.

This all works fine, except when the PDF

Answer 1

mysql_real_escape_string() puts backslashes to these characters.

\x00, \n, \r, \, ', " and \x1a

The thing is, that if your binary output has backslashes it it's binary data, it can be very hard to fix. That being said, there is no magical function to undo this function.