HEX_OF_VALUE() - Present any value in hexadecimal format

Function group: string function

HEX_OF_VALUE() presents a value of any data type in hexadecimal format, i.e. in a string consisting of the hexadecimal characters 0,1,2,...,9,a,b,...,f.

This enables any bit patterns to be output in readable format.

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HEX_OF_VALUE ( expression )

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expression

Expression whose value is to be presented in hexadecimal format.
The data type may not be CHARACTER VARYING(n) with a maximum length of n > 16000 and not NATIONAL CHARACTER VARYING(n) with a maximum length of n > 8000.
expression may not be a multiple value with dimension > 1.

Result

If the value of expression is the NULL value, the result is the NULL value.

Otherwise:

The internal presentation of the value of expression in hexadecimal format as an alphanumeric string. Its length is specified in the table on the next page.

Data type: CHARACTER VARYING with a maximum length in accordance with the table on the next page.

Data type of expression	Data type of the result	Length of the result if not NULL
CHAR(n)	VARCHAR(2*n)	2*n
VARCHAR(n) where n <= 16000	VARCHAR(2*n)	0 to 2*n, even
NCHAR(n)	VARCHAR(4*n)	4*n
NVARCHAR(n) where n <= 8000	VARCHAR(4*n)	0 to 4*n, divisible by 4
SMALLINT	VARCHAR(4)	4
INTEGER	VARCHAR(8)	8
NUMERIC(p,s)	VARCHAR(2*p)	2*p
DECIMAL(p,s)	VARCHAR(q 1)	q 1
REAL, FLOAT (<= 21 characters)	VARCHAR(8)	8
DOUBLE PRECISION, FLOAT (>= 22 characters)	VARCHAR(16)	16
DATE	VARCHAR(12)	12
TIME(3)	VARCHAR(16)	16
TIMESTAMP(3)	VARCHAR(28)	28

Table 15: Data types and lengths in the case of HEX_OF_VALUE()

¹q=p+2 if p is even; q=p+1 if p is odd.

Examples

HEX_OF_VALUE (CAST (254 AS SMALLINT))
   00fe
HEX_OF_VALUE ('ABC') 
   c1c2c3

Internal presentation of values in SESAM/SQL

The internal presentation of values which are not equal to NULL in SESAM/SQL as returned by the REP_OF_VALUE() and HEX_OF_VALUE() functions is similar to the internal presentation of corresponding values in other programming languages (e.g. COBOL, C).

SQL data_type	Sample value	internal presentation (hexadecimal format)
CHAR, VARCHAR EBCDIC string	'ABC'	c1c2c3
NCHAR, NVARCHAR UTF16 string	N'ABC'	004100420043
SMALLINT 2 bytes with binary presentation of value (2 Excess Code)	+300 -300	012C fed4
INTEGER 4 bytes with binary presentation of value (2 Excess Code)	+300 -300	0000012c fffffed4
NUMERIC(p,s) p bytes with EBCDIC characters for digits, sign in the last byte	+123.5 -123.5	f1f2f3f5 f1f2f3d5
DECIMAL(p,s) FLOOR(p/2)1 bytes with 2 digits each, last byte with 1 digit and sign	+123.5 -123.5	01235c 01235d
REAL, FLOAT (<= 21 characters) 1 byte for sign and exponent, 3 bytes mantissa	+2.550625e+2 (=255 + 1/16)	45ff1000
DOUBLE PRECISION, FLOAT (>=22 characters) 1 byte for sign and exponent for base 16, 7 bytes mantissa	+2.5506250000e+2	c5ff100000000000
DATE 2 bytes each with year, month, day in binary format	DATE'2000-08-11'	07d800008000b
TIME(3) 2 bytes each with hours, minutes, seconds and milliseconds in binary format	TIME'12:34:56.123'	000c00220038007b
TIMESTAMP(3) Like DATE and TIME(3)	TIMESTAMP '2000-08-11 12:34:56.123'	07d800008000b000c00 220038007b

Table 16: Overview of the internal presentation of values in SESAM/SQL

¹FLOOR(p/2) is the largest whole number<= p/2