BINARY

The BINARY function returns a BINARY (fixed-length binary string) representation of a string of any type or of a row ID type.


>>-BINARY(string-expression-+------------+-)-------------------><
                            '-,--integer-'

The schema is SYSIBM.

string-expression

An expression that returns a value that is a built-in character string, graphic string, binary string, or a row ID type.

integer

An integer value that specifies the length attribute of the resulting binary string. The value must be an integer between 1 and 255 inclusive.

If integer is not specified:

If the string-expression is the empty string constant, an error occurs
Otherwise, the length attribute of the result is the same as the length attribute of string-expression, except when the input is graphic data. In this case, the length attribute of the result is twice the length of string-expression.

The result of the function is a fixed-length binary string.

The result can be null; if the first argument is null, the result is the null value.

The actual length is the same as the length attribute of the result. If the length of the string-expression is less than the length of the result, the result is padded with hexadecimal zeroes up to the length of the result. If the length of the string-expression is greater than the length attribute of the result, truncation is performed. A warning is returned unless the first input argument is a character string and all the truncated characters are blanks, or the first input argument is a graphic string and all the truncated characters are double-byte blanks, or the first input argument is a binary string and all the truncated bytes are hexadecimal zeroes.

Following examples assume EBCDIC encoding of the input string constants.

Example 1: The following function returns a fixed-length binary string with a length attribute 1 and a value BX'00'.

   SELECT BINARY('',1) 
     FROM SYSIBM.SYSDUMMY1;

Example 2: The following function returns a fixed-length binary string with a length attribute 5 and a value BX'D2C2C80000'

   SELECT BINARY('KBH',5) 
     FROM SYSIBM.SYSDUMMY1;

Example 3: The following function returns a fixed-length binary string with a length attribute 3 and a value BX'D2C2C8'

   SELECT BINARY('KBH') 
     FROM SYSIBM.SYSDUMMY1;

Example 4: The following function returns a fixed-length binary string with a length attribute 3 and a value BX'D2C2C8'

   SELECT BINARY('KBH ',3) 
     FROM SYSIBM.SYSDUMMY1;

Example 5: The following function returns a fixed-length binary string with a length attribute 3 and a value BX'D2C2C8', a warning is also returned.

   SELECT BINARY('KBH 93',3) 
     FROM SYSIBM.SYSDUMMY1;

Example 6: The following function returns a fixed-length binary string with a length attribute 3 and a value BX'C1C2C3', a warning is also returned.

   SELECT BINARY(BINARY('ABC',5),3) 
     FROM SYSIBM.SYSDUMMY1;