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Cast varbinary to varchar returns a blank
I use an application that stores a file path as hexadecimal converted to decimal. So, a file path of \00\00\05\B4 would be stored in the database (slashes are not stored) as 1460. I can convert this using cast(column as varbinary(8)) but I would like to convert it to text so I can provide the actual path using concatenation instead 0x000005B4. When I try to cast the above cast to varchar, it returns a blank. Is there a way to convert varbinary to text so I can parse it in the query and return a path string?
You have to use CONVERT(), not CAST()! -- SQL Server 2008 and above DECLARE @int INT = 1460; SELECT CONVERT(VARCHAR(8), CONVERT(VARBINARY(8), @int, 2), 2); -- SQL Server 2005 -- please see Peter Larsson's blog post [Convert binary value to string value][1] Hope it helps! [1]:
http://sqlblog.com/blogs/peter_larsson/archive/2010/01/27/convert-binary-value-to-string-value.aspx
Works perfect! Thanks for your help.
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