Storing encrypted strings in a password column

From: Jurgen Lindt <nospam_at_nospam.com>
Date: Fri, 13 Sep 2002 07:06:41 GMT
Message-ID: <58gg9.10921$1C2.877880@bgtnsc04-news.ops.worldnet.att.net>

Hello,

I am trying to store an encrypted string into a VARCHAR2 column in Oracle 8i for Solaris. The problem is (without actually having the string to show you), when I do a:

SELECT '<binary character string>' FROM DUAL

...the result comes back with "?"s at specific points in the string - always at the same location. If I store the binary string in the column using an UPDATE statement, upon running a SELECT, it comes back as showing the same string.

If I run:

SELECT ASCII( SUBSTR( PASSWORD, 1, 1 ) ) FROM <table> WHERE <criteria>

It shows me 63, which is the ASCII value for a question mark, not the same character that I originally stored. So from what I can see, something (SQLNet, OCI?) is translating certain characters in the string to "?"s before Oracle gets it, then Oracle is storing the translated version.

Has anyone experienced this?

JL Received on Fri Sep 13 2002 - 02:06:41 CDT