strtobin

Description

Converts a sequence of alphanumeric characters to their equivalent hexadecimal digits.

Syntax

select strtobin(“string of valid alphanumeric characters”)

Parameters

string of valid alphanumeric characters: is string of valid alphanumeric characters, which consists of [1 – 9], [a – f] and [A – F].

Examples

Example 1

Converts the alphanumeric string of “723ad82fe” to a sequence of hexadecimal digits:

select strtobin("723ad82fe")
go

-----------------------------------
0x0723ad82fe

The in-memory representation of the alphanumeric character string and its equivalent hexadecimal digits are:

Alphanumeric character string (9 bytes)
0		7		2		3		a		d	8	2	f	e
Hexadecimal digits (5 bytes)
0	7	2	3	a	d	8	2	f	e

The function processes characters from right to left. In this example, the number of characters in the input is odd. For this reason, the hexadecimal sequence has a prefix of “0” and is reflected in the output.

Example 2

Converts the alphanumeric string of a local variable called @str_data to a sequence of hexadecimal digits equivalent to the value of “723ad82fe”:

declare @str_data varchar(30)
select @str_data = "723ad82fe"
select strtobin(@str_data)
go

----------
0x0723ad82fe

Usage

Any invalid characters in the input results in NULL as the output.
The input sequence of hexadecimal digits must have a prefix of “0x”.
A NULL input results in NULL output.

Standards

ANSI SQL – Compliance level: Transact-SQL extension.

Permissions

Any user can execute strtobin.