Re: Storing non-printable chars in CHAR columns

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? Now if you need to store a binary value, whose first byte may be '\\0' (say COBOL low-value), in a CHAR column, how do you work-around it so that Informix does not consider the value a database NULL and be able to retrieve the column back with the original value? Thanks, Victor vchow@buckeye.consilium.com