RE: Strange(?) behaviour with utl_raw.cast_to_raw

From: Mark W. Farnham <mwf_at_rsiz.com>
Date: Tue, 21 Jul 2015 03:25:47 -0400
Message-ID: <18fe01d0c386$78e657a0$6ab306e0$_at_rsiz.com>

LENGTH is LENGTH(char)  

When you cast ‘ABC’ to raw and then convert it to char display it is three 2 digit numbers, ergo length returns 6.  

Possibly you want vsize .  

mwf  

From: oracle-l-bounce_at_freelists.org [mailto:oracle-l-bounce_at_freelists.org] On Behalf Of Steve Baldwin Sent: Tuesday, July 21, 2015 2:39 AM
To: Jonathan Lewis
Cc: oracle-l_at_freelists.org
Subject: Re: Strange(?) behaviour with utl_raw.cast_to_raw  

Is this what you mean?  

SQL> select dump(utl_raw.cast_to_raw('abc'), 16) from dual;  

DUMP(UTL_RAW.CAST_TO_RAW('ABC'),16)

---

Typ=23 Len=3: 61,62,63  

I think there is something weird with this function - or more likely something I'm not understanding.  

For example:  

SQL> select utl_raw.cast_to_raw(chr(255)) from dual;  

UTL_RAW.CAST_TO_RAW(CHR(255))

---

FF  

Seems reasonable. But:  

SQL> set null '<null>'

SQL> select utl_raw.cast_to_raw(chr(255) || chr(255)) from dual;  

UTL_RAW.CAST_TO_RAW(CHR(255)||CHR(255))

---

<null>  

Ok. Maybe something to do with an invalid utf8 string. What about converting to an 8-bit char set?  

SQL> select utl_raw.cast_to_raw(convert(chr(255) || chr(255), 'WE8ISO8859P1')) from dual;  

UTL_RAW.CAST_TO_RAW(CONVERT(CHR(255)||CHR(255),'WE8ISO8859P1'))

---

<null>  

According to the utl_raw docs:  

This function converts a VARCHAR2 value represented using some number of data bytes into a RAW value with that number of data bytes. The data itself is not modified in any way, but its data type is recast to a RAW data type.  

On Tue, Jul 21, 2015 at 2:34 PM, Jonathan Lewis <jonathan_at_jlcomp.demon.co.uk> wrote:  

Try dump(... , 16)

97 = 0x0061 -- 2 bytes  

Regards

Jonathan Lewis

Sent from my iPad

On 21 Jul 2015, at 03:38, Steve Baldwin <stbaldwin_at_multiservice.com> wrote:

Is this expected behaviour?  

SQL> select length(utl_raw.cast_to_raw('abc')) from dual;  

LENGTH(UTL_RAW.CAST_TO_RAW('ABC'))

---

6  

SQL> select dump(utl_raw.cast_to_raw('abc')) from dual;  

DUMP(UTL_RAW.CAST_TO_RAW('ABC'))

---

Typ=23 Len=3: 97,98,99  

I was expecting the first select to return a length of 3 - just like the dump in the second select.  

(Oracle 11.2.0.4)  

Thanks,  

Steve  

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Received on Tue Jul 21 2015 - 09:25:47 CEST