Re: Storing non-printable chars in CHAR columns

In article <20tb3aINN2ur@charnel.ecst.csuchico.edu> tsaylor@ecst.csuchico.edu (Todd M. Saylor) writes: >Here at Bi-Tech Software, we also use COBOL and store binary (non-printable) >values in character fields. We have found that, if the first character >of a field is NULL (low values), the column is considered NULL by Informix. >Note that a NULL column means a value which was not supplied, not just >a value of binary "0". We also experienced problems using the import/export >utilities. For this reason, we do not use the import/export utilities. > >We consider it a limitation, but we work around it. I'd be interested >to hear a response from one of you Informix support-types. Will future >versions of Informix continue to behave this way? Can the import/export >utilities be enhanced to handle binary data in character fields? Take a look at 6.0 as soon as 6.0 (OnLine & SE) will be out... It doesn't solve the 'first byte not equal \\0' problem but it adds an option to the tools (load/unload, dbexport/dbimport, dbload) in order to handle binary information correctly: Every unprintable character will be represented as hex value escaped by a '\\' (eg. \\FF). I hope that info helps... I might demo it to interested people during the Informix Users Conference in San Jose this week (I will be at the SAP booth in th exhibit hall). Greetings, Alexander Consultant, Informix Software Germany Email: alexk@informix.com (NeXTmail welcome)