SQL: bytea support

[kbatuigas]

Description

This pull request adds documentation for the new BYTEA data type in Redpanda SQL, which allows storage and querying of arbitrary binary data. The changes include a new reference page for BYTEA, updates to the SQL data types summary table, and navigation updates to include the new documentation.

Documentation for BYTEA data type:

• Added a new reference page bytea.adoc describing the BYTEA data type, its syntax, usage examples, supported and unsupported operations, literal formats, and how it maps to binary fields from external sources such as Iceberg, Protobuf, Avro, and Kafka record metadata.

Documentation navigation and summary updates:

• Updated the SQL data types summary table in index.adoc to include BYTEA, describing its purpose and example literal formats.
• Added a navigation entry for the new bytea.adoc page in nav.adoc so it appears in the reference documentation menu.

Resolves https://github.com/redpanda-data/documentation-private/issues/
Review deadline: 19 May

Page previews

https://deploy-preview-585--rp-cloud.netlify.app/redpanda-cloud/reference/sql/sql-data-types/bytea/

Checks

• New feature
• Content gap
• Support Follow-up
• Small fix (typos, links, copyedits, etc)

[netlify]

✅ Deploy Preview for rp-cloud ready!

Name	Link
🔨 Latest commit	a6c772d
🔍 Latest deploy log	https://app.netlify.com/projects/rp-cloud/deploys/6a0e0afe29943800084f25d4
😎 Deploy Preview	https://deploy-preview-585--rp-cloud.netlify.app
📱 Preview on mobile	Toggle QR Code... Use your smartphone camera to open QR code link.

---

To edit notification comments on pull requests, go to your Netlify project configuration.

[coderabbitai]

Important

Review skipped

Auto reviews are disabled on base/target branches other than the default branch.

Please check the settings in the CodeRabbit UI or the .coderabbit.yaml file in this repository. To trigger a single review, invoke the @coderabbitai review command.

⚙️ Run configuration

Configuration used: Organization UI

Review profile: CHILL

Plan: Pro

Run ID: 40d5bbaf-6467-4a63-a715-5ba755309f65

You can disable this status message by setting the reviews.review_status to false in the CodeRabbit configuration file.

Use the checkbox below for a quick retry:

• 🔍 Trigger review

✨ Finishing Touches

🧪 Generate unit tests (beta)

• Create PR with unit tests
• Commit unit tests in branch DOC-2189-bytea-type-for-sql-engine

---

_{Comment @coderabbitai help to get the list of available commands and usage tips.}

[micheleRP]

@kbatuigas shouldn't we alphabetize the data types in nav.adoc, like:

• Array
• Bool
• Bytea
• Date

[micheleRP]

For all data types: some are put in backticks and some are not (like here with bytea and text, but also throughout pages). We should be consistent.

[kbatuigas]

I'll cut a new branch from rp-sql to do some of these alphabetization/consistency fixes, plus add some content on the SQL index page per Joyce's comment in redpanda-data/docs-site#173 (comment)

[micheleRP]

Could you also fix the Syntax heading in this other file in this PR?

[micheleRP]

approving but reminder to check the link and backticks noted here after other PRs merge!