Oracle7 Server Application Developer's Guide

Data Conversion for Trusted Oracle

In Trusted Oracle, labels are stored internally as compact binary structures. Trusted Oracle provides two functions that allow you to convert a label from external (character or human readable) to internal (binary) format, and vice versa. These functions are described in the following sections.

The TO_CHAR Function

You can use the TO_CHAR function to convert a label from its binary to character representation, as follows:

TO_CHAR(label [,format])

where label is the binary representation of a label and format is a valid label format (see the following section, "Formatting Labels" , for more details about this parameter).

This function is useful because it allows you to retrieve a label in any supported format that suits your needs.

The TO_LABEL Function

You can use the TO_LABEL function to convert a label from a character string to its internal, binary representation.

To convert a label from character string to binary representation, enter

TO_LABEL(string [,format])

where string is the character representation of a label and format is a valid label format (see the following section, "Formatting Labels" for more details about this parameter).

You must use the TO_LABEL function when converting a label from one external format to another (see "Formatting Labels" for examples of how to use this function).