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# INFO: Converting Binary Data to Hexadecimal String

Article ID: 104829

Article Last Modified on 2/22/2005

APPLIES TO

- Microsoft SQL Server 4.21a Standard Edition
- Microsoft SQL Server 6.0 Standard Edition
- Microsoft SQL Server 6.5 Standard Edition
- Microsoft SQL Server 6.5 Service Pack 1
- Microsoft SQL Server 6.5 Service Pack 2
- Microsoft SQL Server 6.5 Service Pack 3
- Microsoft SQL Server 6.5 Service Pack 4
- Microsoft SQL Server 6.5 Service Pack 5a
- Microsoft SQL Server 6.5 Service Pack 5a
- Microsoft SQL Server 7.0 Standard Edition
- Microsoft SQL Server 7.0 Service Pack 1

This article was previously published under Q104829

## SUMMARY

SQL Server does not have built-in Transact-SQL command for converting binary data to a hexadecimal string.

## MORE INFORMATION

The Transact-SQL CONVERT command converts binary data to character data in a one byte to one character fashion. SQL Server takes each byte of the source binary data, converts it to an integer value, then uses that integer value as the ASCII value for the destination character data. This behavior applies to the binary, varbinary, and timestamp datatypes.
For example, binary value 00001111 (0x0F in hexadecimal) is converted into its integer equivalent which is 15, then converted to the character that corresponds to ASCII value 15, which is unreadable.
The following stored procedure can be used to return a character string which contains the hexadecimal representation of a binary value:

       create procedure sp_hexadecimal
         @binvalue varbinary(255)
       as
       declare @charvalue varchar(255)
       declare @i int
       declare @length int
       declare @hexstring char(16)

       select @charvalue = '0x'
       select @i = 1
       select @length = datalength(@binvalue)
       select @hexstring = "0123456789abcdef"

       while (@i <= @length)
       begin

         declare @tempint int
         declare @firstint int
         declare @secondint int

         select @tempint = convert(int, substring(@binvalue,@i,1))
         select @firstint = floor(@tempint/16)
         select @secondint = @tempint - (@firstint*16)

         select @charvalue = @charvalue +
           substring(@hexstring, @firstint+1, 1) +
           substring(@hexstring, @secondint+1, 1)

         select @i = @i + 1

       end

       select 'sp_hexadecimal'=@charvalue

For example, when the following command batch is executed with ISQL:

         declare @bin varbinary(255)
         select @bin = @@dbts
         execute sp_hexadecimal @bin
         select 'isql' = @bin
         go

it returns output similar to the following:

         sp_hexadecimal
         ------------------------------------------------------------------
         0x01000000a60b0000

         (1 row affected)

         isql
         ------------------------------------------------------------------
         0x01000000a60b0000
         (1 row affected)

Additional query words: Windows NT

Keywords: kbinfo kbother KB104829