HEX Function

The HEX function returns the hexadecimal encoding of an integer expression.

HEX Function

Element	Description	Restrictions	Syntax
int_expression	Expression for which you want the hexadecimal equivalent	Must be a literal integer or some other expression that returns an integer	Expression

The next example displays the data type and column length of the columns of the orders table in hexadecimal format. For MONEY and DECIMAL columns, you can then determine the precision and scale from the lowest and next-to-the-lowest bytes. For VARCHAR and NVARCHAR columns, you can determine the minimum space and maximum space from the lowest and next-to-the-lowest bytes. For more information about encoded information, see the HCL OneDB™ Guide to SQL: Reference.

SELECT colname, coltype, HEX(collength)
   FROM syscolumns C, systables T
   WHERE C.tabid = T.tabid AND T.tabname = 'orders';

The following example lists the names of all the tables in the current database and their corresponding tblspace number in hexadecimal format.

SELECT tabname, HEX(partnum) FROM systables;

The HEX function can operate on an expression, as the next example shows:

SELECT HEX(order_num + 1) FROM orders;