Convert HEX to ASCII - TSQL

I have tried the below solution..

SELECT convert(varchar, 0x'Hex value')

Select allOpen in new window

But this is working only for a single record. How to modify the above query, if I want to use a column instead ?

Did you try
SELECT Convert(varchar, 0x+<columnName>)

What about ...
Update MyTable set strField = convert(varchar(64), hexField,0);

http://social.msdn.microsoft.com/Forums/sqlserver/en-US/6bfe99c8-c662-44bf-ae10-74b4a00d4da7/hex-to-string?forum=transactsql
for more options / discussion

I think I don't understand the question.  In your example, everything is already ASCII, there are no numeric types referenced.

Can you give a simple example:
What would you expect to see for an input value of CF?

Hi Jim,

The query you posted in your first comment is not working. I tried that too..

Here is the input: 3532393263326265303030303030303030613064366336383233333630303032

Output should be: 5292c2be000000000a0d6c6823360002

So you're actually trying to convert ASCII to Hex, not Hex to ASCII?

You can create a function for converting hex to ASCII:

create function HexToAscii(@hex varchar(max))
returns varchar(max)
as
begin
	declare @result varchar(max) = '', @i int = 1, @c int
	while @i < len(@hex) begin
		set @c = (charindex(substring(@hex,@i,1), '0123456789abcdef') - 1) * 16 + charindex(substring(@hex,@i+1,1), '0123456789abcdef') - 1
		set @result = @result + char(@c)
		set @i = @i + 2
	end
	return @result
end

Select allOpen in new window

Then you can use that in the query to convert the value from each record:

update TheTable
set TextValue = dbo.HexToAscii(HexValue)

Select allOpen in new window

For this solution you need a table called Numbers with a column called Number that contains the numbers from 1 to the max length of your conversion field.

This works for a single value.  For a table you will need to adjust the select statement to include your key field as well as to correlate the subquery.

DECLARE @x as varchar(MAX)
Set @x = '35323139636430323030303030303030306130393031623332333339303030323b30313631363132363030303230303431'

SELECT @x, (select CHAR(LEFT(SUBSTRING(@x,Number,2),1)*16+RIGHT(Substring(@X,Number,2),1))
                   FROM Numbers
                   WHERE number > 0 and number < Len(@x) and number%2 = 1
                   ORDER BY Number
                   FOR XML PATH('')) fixed

Select allOpen in new window

BTW, you're converting a decimal number to a hexadecimal number.  ASCII doesn't come anywhere near this entire concept.

cpkilekofp, the input string is the hexadecimal representation of the ASCII characters that form the output string.

The input just looks like it's decimal because it happens to lack any components over 9, and the output is not a hexadecimal number, it's a string that just happens to be the hexadecimal representation of a number.

This post is not truly relevant to the topic at hand and may be deleted by adminstrative personnel with prejudice on my part if it is deemed too far off-topic.

GreenGhost,

You said:

cpkilekofp, the input string is the hexadecimal representation of the ASCII characters that form the output string.

That is clearly not true.  If it were true, each ASCII character in the input string would be represented by two hexadecimal digits in the output string, making it twice the size of the input string.  

On the other hand, an ASCII string containing a decimal number will convert to a SHORTER ASCII string if the output string is considered to be a hexadecimal representation of the decimal number in the original string unless it is padded with zeroes.  

This is easily demonstrated:  decimal and hex 0 through 9 are the same length; decimal 10 is length 2 while the corresponding hex value A is of length 1; decimal 100 of length 3 is longer than hex 64; I'll skip a formal proof here, but the decimal length will always be greater than or equal to the hex length.

The example given of a correct output string is considerably shorter than the input.  Therefore, it cannot be a conversion of its ASCII characters to a hexadecimal representation, but must more reasonable be assumed to be a conversion of a decimal number to its hexadecimal representation.

cpkilekofp, you have it backwards.

The input is the hexadecimal representation of the ASCII codes for the characters in the output, not the other way around.

It's easy to see that this is the correct way to convert the data if you actually try to do the conversion of the example data.

Thank you everyone for spending time on my req. I really appreciate your effort. Thanks a lot.