store hex - NO hex conversion?

I'm writing Perl cgi scripts to/from Oracle 8i with Perl DBI - I'd like to store a hex number(ex: 0x3f) in Oracle, and read it out as a hex number so that I can use it, with as few(0 if possible) conversions as possible, in bitwise comparisons. So far the only method I've found that works is to store the hex number in Oracle as VARCHAR2(string), read it back out into a scalar, and run "dec" on it to convert it to a decimal value. I can use the decimal value in bitwise comparison's, but I'd like to use hex values with no conversions.

There's got to be a better way than the way I'm doing it. Any help is appreciated.

--
Hardy Merrill
Mission Critical Linux
http://www.missioncriticallinux.com
978-446-9166


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