Brion wrote: Well, I haven't looked at it, but just read these messages... If I get it right, there's no difference between storing something as hex or storing it as binary, because hex is just a shorter form of presentation for binary values, right? So, was "hex" in the original message referring to strings to save some numeric values? *confused* -- chris ------ Der Inhalt dieses E-Mails ist streng vertraulich und m�glicherweise gesetzlich besonders gesch�tzt. Dieses E-Mail ist nur f�r den Adressaten bestimmt. Wenn Sie nicht der beabsichtigte Empf�nger sind, ist es Ihnen nicht gestattet und stellt m�glicherweise einen Gesetzesverstoss dar, dieses E-mail zu kopieren, zu verbreiten oder anderweitig zu verwenden. In diesem Fall sollten Sie uns so schnell wie m�glich benachrichtigen und dieses E-mail l�schen. Le contenu de ce courriel est strictement confidentiel et probablement l�galement prot�g�. Il n'est adress� qu'aux destinataires mentionn�s. Si vous n'en faites pas partie, vous n'avez pas l'autorisation de le copier, ni de le diffuser, ni m�me de le destiner � un autre usage - ce qui dans chaque cas peut en effet constituer une infraction � la loi. Dans ce cas, vous devriez nous en informer imm�diatement et effacer ce courriel. Il contenuto del presente messaggio elettronico � da considerare di massima riservatezza e possibilmente � protetto in modo particolare dalla legge. La presente e-mail � riservata alla sola attenzione della persona destinataria. Se lei non � la persona che avrebbe dovuto ricevere la e-mail, non le � permesso e possibilmente rappresenta una violazione della legge, copiare la presente e-mail, diffonderla o utilizzarla in qualsiasi altro modo. In questo caso lei dovrebbe informarci al pi� presto possibile e cancellare la presente e-mail.

Bryan wrote: Well, I guess you're wrong here... one hex digit is four bits, thus half a byte. A byte in hex isn't any different as a byte in binary, hex is just another representation of the same value in binary form, takes up the same space _and is stored in exact the same physical representation as binary_. 0x10 in hex is 16 in decimal and stored as one byte. 00010000 in binary is 16 in decimal and stored as one byte. Of course, when you think I am wrong please say so ;) -- chris ------ Der Inhalt dieses E-Mails ist streng vertraulich und m�glicherweise gesetzlich besonders gesch�tzt. Dieses E-Mail ist nur f�r den Adressaten bestimmt. Wenn Sie nicht der beabsichtigte Empf�nger sind, ist es Ihnen nicht gestattet und stellt m�glicherweise einen Gesetzesverstoss dar, dieses E-mail zu kopieren, zu verbreiten oder anderweitig zu verwenden. In diesem Fall sollten Sie uns so schnell wie m�glich benachrichtigen und dieses E-mail l�schen. Le contenu de ce courriel est strictement confidentiel et probablement l�galement prot�g�. Il n'est adress� qu'aux destinataires mentionn�s. Si vous n'en faites pas partie, vous n'avez pas l'autorisation de le copier, ni de le diffuser, ni m�me de le destiner � un autre usage - ce qui dans chaque cas peut en effet constituer une infraction � la loi. Dans ce cas, vous devriez nous en informer imm�diatement et effacer ce courriel. Il contenuto del presente messaggio elettronico � da considerare di massima riservatezza e possibilmente � protetto in modo particolare dalla legge. La presente e-mail � riservata alla sola attenzione della persona destinataria. Se lei non � la persona che avrebbe dovuto ricevere la e-mail, non le � permesso e possibilmente rappresenta una violazione della legge, copiare la presente e-mail, diffonderla o utilizzarla in qualsiasi altro modo. In questo caso lei dovrebbe informarci al pi� presto possibile e cancellare la presente e-mail.

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 christoph.huesler(a)css.ch wrote: Hence, it requires two bytes of hex string to encode a single byte of binary data. You're wrong. :) - -- brion vibber (brion @ wikimedia.org)

On 6/5/07, christoph.huesler(a)css.ch <christoph.huesler(a)css.ch> wrote: Answer to all your questions right here: yes. In an ideal world we could specify the column as GINORMOUSINT(128) FORMAT HEX or something and have both the efficiency and the prettiness, but alas this isn't an ideal world, and CHAR/BINARY storage of some kind is needed if you don't want to split up over multiple columns, and there's no "FORMAT HEX" in SQL. The question is then whether to store the data as unreadable binary (debugging, innocent SELECT *'s, and changing character encodings become fun then, as Brion observes) or as nicely manageable hex characters at a whole sixteen bytes more per row.