python & sql server

Question

When I do a select statement for varbinary field in microsoft enterprise manger i get the field on readabel hex format like ab2c2f2d... but when i do the same statment with pymssql i get a gibrish

the select statment is : select x from table --where x the varbinary field

could someone help with this issue ?

Answer 1

Microsoft Enterprise Manager is converting the binary value to a hexadecimal string for you.

One option is to change your query to SELECT CAST( x AS varchar ) FROM table. This will have SQL Server convert the varbinary to a hexdecimal string for you, http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa226054(SQL.80).aspx

Another option is to use the python module, binascii to convert the binary data to a hexadecimal string yourself. You use the functions binascii.b2a_hex(data) or binascii.hexlify(data) to do this.